Last night I dreamed that I swam all the way from south Florida to Virginia with a school of dolphins. Perhaps it was merely the result of a stressful but joyous weekend (we hosted our Youth Missions Celebration Dinner on Saturday night and the Charlottesville District Youth Rally on Sunday afternoon and evening). More likely, I watched a little too much cable news coverage of the New Orleans evacuation before going to bed.

In any case, the dream was scary at first because I worried that the dolphins and the sea would hurt me, but it became a beautiful experience when they wanted only to dance and play all the way. We were leaving something horrible, but there was grace in the journey. Maybe that's how it always is. At least, that's my prayer for the people of the American south this week.

Shalom.

Today has been one of those unexpectedly stressful days. Into the joy of major tasks completed (I finally claimed and framed my diploma today) and new projects begun (I spent much of the morning finalizing my class schedule, dealing with course action forms and such) came an occupational roadblock. I've mentioned before that our church is experiencing some financial challenges this year, and the early stages of putting together next year's budget indicate that a major cut in funding for youth ministry, while not likely, is a possibility.

As such, our staff-parish relations chair, a stalwart church leader (and youth group parent) whose wisdom and vision I trust fully, asked me to write the committee a letter describing the effects such a cut in funding would have on youth ministry in our faith community. If I'd had more time, I think (hope) it would have been better---more articulate, more biblical, maybe even shorter---but it is what it is. On my computer the file's called "Youth Ministry Apology," and it's here for your consideration. For the record, I remain conident that youth ministry at Hinton Avenue has a bright and boundless future, and I'm endlessly thankful for the ways it has shaped my faith journey over the past three years.

Dear Friends,
 
Following my meeting with _______ earlier this week, he suggested that I send him a brief letter explaining what our church would lose if we decide to withdraw funding for youth ministry. In truth, I am probably not the best person to speak fully to Hinton Avenue's need for effective youth ministry, so I encourage you to make time for conversations with the youth and families who are most invested in our youth group. 
 
The most compelling information I have to share regarding the importance of full funding for youth ministry lies simply in the fruits of that ministry.  When I came on board almost three years ago, I inherited a small group of dedicated young people who had endless ideas but lacked a full vision of where to locate those ideas within the broader church community.  Since that time, I have had the distinct privilege of witnessing these youth find their voice within the church, through worship leadership, Bible study, missions experiences and other ministry outlets.  I have seen them claim the faith of their parents and grandparents as their own, in the process challenging the entire congregation to put our faith into action in God's world.  I've watched the group grow in body and in spirit as younger children have moved into the middle school group and more youth have invited friends to become a part of youth ministry here in Belmont. 
 
During this time, I have partnered with adult volunteers in our congregation to provide opportunities for mission and ministry that these youth cannot experience any place else.  Many of them have spoken in front of a large group for the first time, taken their first airplane flight, and traveled outside the country for the first time----all together with a group of people who know them and love them.  I cannot express strongly enough how valuable these experiences are for our youth---and how valuable they will be for them years from now.  Even the less obviously "religious" of our activities----caving in West Virginia, white water rafting in Tennessee, visiting the National Aquarium and the Virginia Science Museum---provide opportunities for fellowship and community-building that are essential to the work of the Holy Spirit in these young Christians' lives. 
 
The journey of faith is long and difficult.  These youth are exposed to things in their schools and extracurricular activities that tempt them to forget who they are and the values they've been taught.  Our youth group gives them a safe space to be themselves---and to find themselves in Christ.  When they leave this place, moving on to college or the workplace, to start families of their own and begin diverse careers, their positive experience of youth ministry will carry them, reminding them that God is present in all that they do and in every person they encounter.  This, I believe, is the highest and most important aim of our youth ministry.
 
When _____ asked me what the biggest barrier was to effective youth ministry at Hinton Avenue, I responded that a lack of adult presence and participation sometimes prohibits us from offering the sorts of programs and opportunities we would like.  With the busy-ness of church members' schedules, this is an understanding dilemma, and one that we're continuing to find creative ways to work around.  I think this demonstrates, however, just how important funding for a youth minister's position on our church staff is.  My schedule and budget would not allow me to do the work I do with our young people as a volunteer, and I sense that this is true for most of the adults who are involved with our youth ministry.  Hinton Avenue has historically held ministry with children and youth as a high priority, and this church's support of me and its youth has never ceased to surprise and encourage me over the past three years.  As such, I have total faith that we will continue to support and grow youth ministry in this place for years to come.
 
Your brother in Christ,
 
 
 
David F. Vaughan

So it seems that all you need to do to energize your social life is announce that you're getting married. I think more people have talked to me, and about me, in the past few days than ever before in my life. Many of you have offered kind words of blessing in response to Saturday’s post here, and many more messages have come in as the word has spread through our church and campus ministry communities. As an example of the difference this has made, I present you a synopsis of my day:

After a devastatingly unproductive morning (the highlights of which were a victorious game of Oregon Trail and one and a half ER reruns), I joined April for a jaunt to the UVA Athletics Ticket Office, where we picked up tickets to the UVA football games at North Carolina and Maryland. Being on the University’s side of town, of course, gave us a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the Ruby Tuesday salad bar before my 2:00 meeting with senior pastor Edward back at Le Taza. He and I had a fine time celebrating the ministry we share at Hinton Avenue, lamenting the church’s lack of financial security, and discussing details of the wedding (which will definitely be at Hinton Avenue on July 22).

Our one-hour meeting ended up lasting about two and a half hours, so I rushed to get to the bank and the school board office before the close of business. I grudgingly put off the less urgent errands (checking out new cell phone plans, finally picking up my diploma, returning books to the library, etc.) and made it home a little after 6:00. Dinner was leftovers from Largo, Maryland’s finest, Jerry’s Pizza and Subs, and then the social mayhem ensued. I’ve spent the rest of the evening catching up with old and new friends. I responded to congratulatory messages from high school friends John and Emily, got recruited for a fantasy football league by childhood buddy Travis (the draft’s Friday night, by the way, and any expert advice is greatly appreciated…), chatted with fellow Wahoos Alex, Eddie, and Maggie who are getting ready for the new semester, compared wedding notes with recently-engaged friend Stephannie, caught up on Wesley Foundation news and notes with roommate Andrew, and got the lowdown on the first day back to school from youths Jeremy, Meredith and Savannah.

In the blogosphere, April and I recently made an appearance in Elizabeth’s Summary of the Summer, and both Ashley and Meredith have posted great reviews of our Six Flags trip. Tonight I’m hoping to continue the (electronic) conversation with a couple more long-overdue emails to good friends. And while I think we’ll both soon be ready to slip back out of the spotlight, for now the extra smiles and hugs are a welcome blessing. Shalom!

A couple weeks ago (Wednesday, August 3 for the romantic or curious among you) April and I went on a date to celebrate and recoup from her first days as a nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center. For a while I had been wanting to take her to a little family diner in Staunton called Mrs. Rowe's. Gene Tatum, the pastor of the Ocran United Methodist Church and a good friend of mine, and his wife have been driving the 2+ hours there from their home for Sunday lunches and weekend getaways for years, and he's repeatedly encouraged us to get out there and try it for ourselves.

So I called him from my parents' house (where my brother and I were for his birthday on August 2) for directions to the restaurant and then bought us tickets to that night's Shenandoah Shakespeare production of 'The Comedy of Errors' at the Blackfriars Playhouse. We enjoyed the kind people and great food at Mrs. Rowe's and laughed uncontrollably throughout the brilliant, wonderfully-done show. After spending only a couple frightened minutes searching for a way out of Staunton, we found the highway again, maintained our tradition of stopping as frequently as possible at scenic overlooks (even when it's dark and scary and there really isn't much to see), and returned to Charlottesville.

At this point, I retrieved the gift I had suavely hidden under an old comforter in the back seat of my van and lugged it smoothly into April's apartment. After a few minutes of small talk (well, okay, mostly it was her trying to figure out what I had hidden inside the blanket and me being rather amused by her quest), I gave her a painting I had picked up down in Pulaski earlier in the summer. It's a framed oil print by local southwest Virginia artist Sharon Johnson of two children holding hands on the beach, watching a beautiful sunrise. April seemed to really like this, so I pointed her to a letter I had written on the back of the print, asking her to marry me.

She said yes, we picked out the engagement ring on Saturday morning, I left immediately for the weekend of funerals and then Camp Rainbow, she continued working exhausting twelve-hour days all the time, I girded up my loins and made some joyful but awkward telephone calls announcing the engagement, and finally this week we were actually able to see each other and think ahead a little bit. While it won't be official until we make it onto the church calendar some time next week, it looks like the wedding will be July 22, 2006 at the Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church with Alex Joyner officiating.

Needless to say, we're both very excited about this news! Family and friends seem to be on board (apologies to those of you whom I haven't yet seen or called in the crazy days since this happened), the youth have already pretty well planned the service and their respective roles in it, and April and I at last have an overwhelming project to consume any free time we might otherwise have had.

Our decision to get married also means that I really have to get on the ball with the whole seminary application process. Since there are now officially two of us relocating next fall (perhaps there always were, but that's a discussion for another time...), and one of us has a career to consider in the move, I'm hoping to get all my applications in by November 1 so that together we can weigh geography, academics and financial aid offers and know where we're going by Christmas. For the record, the schools still in the running are Candler School of Theology at Emory University, Duke Divinity School, Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, and Yale Divnity School. As always, your insight and prayers are greatly appreciated in this vocational journey.

In the midst of mapping out the rest of our lives like this, with so much attention focused on the future, I'm having some predictable difficulty living fully in the present. Fortunately a full schedule of youth activities (We just completed our Youth Alive! summer program which featured many lunches at great Charlottesville eateries, a fright night at the Hinton House, a fun and holy day trip to Virginia Beach, Bingo games and visits with the residents of a local nursing home, volunteering with our church's Vacation Bible School, a photographic scavenger hunt around the city, and yesterday's journey to the Six Flags America theme park in Largo, Maryland!) and the beginning of the fall semester (On Wednesday classes begin in my Bioethics M.A. program here at UVA!) are keeping me grounded and focused on the tasks at hand.

At the moment, those tasks include a few more of the aforementioned awkward, joyful phone calls, catching up at the Virginia men's soccer game with some friends who have made it back into town for the fall, and completing some long overdue research for Lauren on devotional reading in the colonial home.

Thanks and blessings to you all!

Last weekend I preached at Salem UMC for a joyous homecoming, bringing Hinton Avenue's Youth Sunday on the road and uniting our hearts in worship with the family of God there. This weekend the invitation was much more somber, as I preached for Salem's pastor Gary Sims, whose wife Donna lost her battle with cancer on Thursday.

It was an important weekend of mourning and resurrection for the folks at Salem, and I was honored to play a small role in the healing that's beginning there. After church on Sunday I had lunch with my parents and brother and headed straight for Blackstone to spend a week at Camp Rainbow. I'm in Charlottesville again this afternoon, however, for the funeral of Mrs. Sadie Sacre, a stalwart and dear member of our church who died rather unexpectedly last Thursday as well.

The sermon below was preached as much to me as to anyone else; I hope that it might offer hope to you as well, dear reader.

He said to his disciples, "Therfore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worryign add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider teh lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you---you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these thigns, and you Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."
--Luke 12:22-31

A few weeks ago Edward Hopkins, the senior pastor of our church in Charlottesville, shared a story with me that I think may carry meaning for us this morning. He told me that he'd recently been invited by a couple close friends to a weekend dinner party they were hosting at their house. It'd be an occasion for a group of busy people to sit down and share a meal together, with all the restorative fellowship and conversation that a meal like that can offer. He was so excited about the chance to break out of his routine, away from the office hours and the counseling sessions and the soccer practices which usually take hold of his calendar, that he said yes immediately, before ever consulting that calendar to see what the weekend
looked like or whether he'd even be available. Only after he'd accepted this dinner invitation did it occur to him that in order to come he'd have to prepare a dish or two to share with the group. And while he was gladly willing to spend some time in the kitchen in advance of this night, it would mean another commitment in a schedule that's already far too packed.

So bracing himself for an afternoon of culinary exploration and frustration, he asked his friends the inevitable question of all dinner party guests, "What can I bring?" The couple, though, offered a sincere response that warmed his heart and stretched far beyond this single meal. They said, "Don't worry about the cooking or the planning---just bring yourself and your hunger."

It's a response that sounds a lot more like a call to radical Christian discipleship than a simple dinner invitation, and I think it takes us to the very heart of what Jesus is getting at in our Scripture this morning. To understand these words from Luke it's helpful for us to back up a little bit. We drop in on Jesus as he's teaching a large crowd that has gathered around him, warning them about the dangers of religious hypocrisy and spiritual death. He's been making strange pronouncements, seeming to suggest that this world is not what it seems, that the things that seem most important in our lives will wither and fade away in the life to come, when up comes an angry, almost blood-thirsty man, who believes that his brother has cheated him out of his half of the family inheritance and demands that
Jesus order justice to be done in his case.

Instead Jesus tells a disturbing parable in which a man accumulates such an abundance of crops that he has no room for the surplus in his barns. Rather than recognizing this as a blessing from God and distributing his extra food and resources to the needy in his community, he decides to tear down all his storehouses and build bigger ones, mega-barns that will more aptly reflect and display his wealth. "I have ample goods laid up for many years," he assures himself. "Relax---eat, drink, be merry." But God says to him, "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" "So it is," Jesus declares, "with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God."

It's here, immediately after this parable, that our reading picks up. Jesus is talking to his earliest disciples, the very first people whom he called out of their former lives into a new relationship with God that would be embodied by love for others. And they had the most natural concerns in the world. If we leave our mother and our father, our spouse and our children to follow you, if we sell everything we have and give the profit to the poor, if we take up our cross and pursue the path to yours, what'll we eat along the way? How will we clothe ourselves? How will we be protected against harsh climates and harsh people? As we make our way, doubting and stumbling and hoping, to the heavenly feast, what can we bring with us to make the invitation worthwhile?

These are the most natural questions anyone could ask, as close to us as life itself, but their answer requires the most unnatural faith any of these people could imagine. "I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing." When we're invited into the new life we know through Christ, we're called to come with empty hands and willing spirits. "To the table of faith," beckons our Lord and Saviour, "bring yourself and your hunger."

Rabbinic theology, the common teachings of the Jewish rabbis, talks about a concept known as tikkun olam. Briefly, tikkun olam is the healing, or the repairing, of Creation. The rabbis believe, as Christians have through the centuries, that through original sin human communities are fundamentally, though not irreparably, fallen. They point to disease and warfare, to hatred and violence, to despair and hopelessness, as evidence that the world as we encounter it today is not the world as God envisions it in eternity. The theological gist of it is that Creation is not yet complete, and that God is not yet done with us.

Tikkun olam is human participation in divine reconciliation. It happens when we pray without ceasing for our friends and our enemies. It happens when we give of our time and our resources and our lives until it hurts. It happens when human beings, with different experiences and expectations, whose histories and values may not always be the same, set aside those differences and work together---to cook a meal, to build a house, to combat poverty, to bring hope and usher in the kingdom.

The religious obligation of tikkun olam refuses to allow people of faith to sit idly by and let evil and injustice rule the day. It demands the actions to back up our words. It requires those of us who are persuaded by its call to actively search for and discern what God is doing around us and then get our hands dirty enhancing and furthering the healing work of God in our world.

We have something similar to tikkun olam in our own United Methodist tradition. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism in 18th century England, talked about three distinct but interconnected types of grace----prevenient grace, that movement of the Spirit that is present in our lives long before we ever sense it, nudging us, sometimes gently and sometimes not so gently, in the direction of faith; justifying grace, the channel through which we are able to respond to God's call and dedicate ourselves to life in Christ; and then sanctifying grace, the continued work of God which draws us on toward perfection within the Christian community. It's not that sanctifying grace guarantees or even suggests that we'll reach perfection in this lifetime; rather, it's that we become a little more like Christ at each step along our journey. With each day that passes and each breath that we take, our mind is conformed to the mind of Christ. Our priorities and conduct are gradually transformed to reflect the activity of God in our lives. And as the mysterious process of sanctification starts to unfold in the individual and communal life of a Christian, all of Creation waits to be repaired by the faith and hope and love that will surely spring forth from that life into the life of the world.

Both Jewish tikkun olam and Christian sanctification are complex and difficult theological concepts, and I don't want us to pretend that we can wrap our minds fully around them this morning, but it may be helpful for us to observe that both these traditions invite us simply to bring ourselves and our hunger into a renewed relationship with God.

A couple years ago, Gary and Donna and their family came to Salem, bringing only themselves and an unmistakable hunger for true ministry---for prayer and worship, for service and growth. You and I have been blessed beyond measure by the gifts and love they have shared so freely with all of us. As a result of the special relationship that has formed between their family and this congregation, this is a tough weekend in the life of our church. And it's natural, on days like today, to feel anger and doubt, to ask some difficult questions of this One who promises to hold us in the palm of his hand, to protect us from the storm and the oppressor, to give us life that conquers all death.

As we take those questions to God in prayer, we're likely to find there grace and hope in abundance. But we're also likely to hear this difficult, and perhaps unwelcome, good news: "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you? Do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given you as well."

My sisters and brothers, you have a special opportunity this week and over the next few weeks to be the church for your pastor, to love Gary and Beth and Emily unconditionally, the way that Christ has loved you. You have a chance to bring healing and repair Creation, even today. And it won't require a single thing that you have---just your presence, your ears for listening, your hands for holding, your hearts for loving. You've already gotten started. I talked with Gary for a while yesterday, after the funeral and the meal here, and he was so grateful for all that you've done, for the way this faith community pulled together to take some of the burden off the family and make things go so perfectly this weekend.

But this is only just the beginning. The journey from here is long and unpredictable. The moments of paralyzing sadness don't come when you schedule them; the memories don't hurt only when it's convenient. There will be times, I promise, when you'll need to carry this family through your prayers and support, through your understanding and encouragement, through sharing their joy and their pain. But this is who we are, a group of people with diverse talents and passions who share a common faith in a Messiah who calls us to love, and to love, and to love with all our being.

In these difficult days if you will come, offering yourself and your hunger, God will accept your gift and, combining it with all the other gifts of this community, bring about something new and holy right before your eyes. This is the promise of Scripture and the testimony of our experience. Hallelujah and Amen!