Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

2 days ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Friday, September 4
Storytelling
by DeLynn Fairless

Mark 4:33: "With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.”

As I sat in the lobby, having just greeted theatre-goers of all ages and types, I heard a wailing cry from inside the theater. Through the door charges a little girl of 4 or 5, tugging her father with one hand, and wiping crocodile tears with the other. “I don’t like the way that mean old lady was talking to Annie!!!” she said between breathy staccato sobs. I had seen them follow fellow family members of our ‘Annie’ during entry, so I knew she was a cousin of that evening’s star. As Dad was explaining that it was “just a story”, and to “wait until Daddy Warbucks comes out…”, I thought to myself: it’s strange she said “Annie”, and not “[her cousin]”. This told me something: this family member, young as she was, at 10 minutes into the show, was already enthralled in the story. She didn’t see her cousin as a family member, but as a character in a story. (Happy ending: as Annie shortly after came out to sing Tomorrow, Cousin flipped the switch, dried the tears, hopped up, and dragged Dad back in, saying, “Oh! Come on! I wanna see this one!”)

We know of the importance of storytelling, and that at a time with few scribes, the Living Message was more important than the “words”. Oftentimes, you may not remember the words someone used but will recall for a lifetime how someone made you FEEL. Jesus spoke in parables but finished with questions that caused listeners to apply those stories to their own lives. Tulsa Theatre Works aims to follow the practice; to help people ask the “how?”, “why?” and “what?” within each of us, through live-stage storytelling. Jesus’s stories are still relevant, to this day. May we all continue to go back and re-read those, ask ourselves the hard questions, and look to God for guidance for the right answers, in His Divine time. (And by the way, give Him some applause every now and then; I’ve heard any Gratitude will do). ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

3 days ago

Your Boston Avenue #dailydevotional, Thursday, September 3
Prayer for Today: Nepal and China
by Rev. EvaMarie Campbell

Gracious and Loving God,

We start our day with our hearts open and ready to receive your loving word and guidance for our lives today.

We give you thanks for the many blessings that surround us and the relationships that nurture and sustain us through our good days and through our bad days. For we know that life contains many ups and downs, celebrations and sorrows, suffering and wholeness.

May we in whatever circumstance we find ourselves remember to remember to lean into our faith, lean into our faith community, and lean into your love for us and others.

We pray for those in Nepal and China where lives have been lost and homes and livelihood destroyed due to the devastating flooding of the area. Our prayers are with them in their despair and in their recovery. We pray for the helpers, all those across the world, who are and will be stepping forward to use their spiritual gifts of giving, serving, helping and healing into action. We especially hold UMCOR the United Methodist Committee on Relief in our prayers and are thankful that they are there on our behalf serving as the hands and feet of Christ.

God, we come to you today, with the expectation that you would instill in us the sense that our whole lives may be prayers to you.

Prayers of gratitude. Prayers of joy. Prayers of concern for others. Prayers of justice and mercy. Prayers of kindness and love. May it be so. Amen ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

4 days ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Wednesday, September 2
Difficult Seasons
by Judy Rowell

I usually try to write things that lift people up and encourage them, but my life isn't without trouble any more than anyone else's is. I'm at a season now where I'm losing people I care about more often than I'd like, and friends of many years are facing health struggles and death all around them. I don't like this part of the journey, but if you're lucky enough to get here, it comes for all of us eventually.

My mother met her best friend for life when I was eighteen months old. I toddled out our back door and into theirs, into a strange apartment, GI housing full of young families, crawled up into a highchair and asked the stranger for a cookie. When my mother came looking for me, she found me there, and that's how she met Betty.

Their friendship lasted more than seventy years.

We kids were raised together, four of them and three of us. When I was about eight, I asked my mother exactly how we were related to the Scotts, and she told me we weren't. I couldn't understand it - I didn't think you could love people that much without being kin.

Both my mother and Betty are gone now, and last week, seventy-eight years after that first cookie, my brother and one of the Scott children died within days of each other. I feel like I lost two brothers. We went to church together, school together - the oldest and I even went to TU together. We celebrated marriages and births and buried our dead together, all the ordinary and extraordinary things that make up a life.

Ecclesiastes tells us that two are better than one, because if either falls, the other can help them up. God never intended for us to walk this road alone. Blood is one way He binds people together, but it's not the only way He does it. Sometimes He hands us a cookie and a highchair and seventy-eight years and calls it family too.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. (Proverbs 17:17) ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

5 days ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Tuesday, September 1
Toward the Fullness Of Ourselves
by Jose Luis Hernandez

Recently, Sam, our senior pastor, asked me, “As we engage in arts education through Sistema, how does learning an instrument or singing together contribute to students’ spiritual growth?”

I have to say, I've been pondering that question for more than a decade!

When students use their voices or play an instrument, they express the fullness of who they are. The arts open this huge window where they are learning that their gifts matter, that their efforts have purpose, and that they belong to something larger than themselves. In many ways, that is spiritual growth. They are on their way to becoming the person that God intended them to be.

Music also teaches us about participating in the life of a community. Each instrument or voice has its own part, but the music comes together when we listen to and depend on one another. This is a holy pursuit. It is about communion, it can cure loneliness, offer hope.

Hundreds of children and youth who could not afford to have high-quality instruments or lessons have benefited from Sistema. As we begin our 12th season in early September, students will learn music that is both challenging and attainable. More importantly, they will be welcomed as whole persons regardless of socioeconomic circumstances, family background, church membership, or creed.

Together, we hope to build a community filled with joy. Sistema is one way the church can be a witness to God’s love in action. If you are a member of the congregation, I hope that you will pray for this program and all the goodness it can bring. ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

6 days ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Monday, August 31
An Unexpected Struggle
by Rev. Keith Bethell

Genesis 32:27-30

27 He said to Jacob, “What’s your name?” and he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won.” 29 Jacob also asked and said, “Tell me your name.” But he said, “Why do you ask for my name?” and he blessed Jacob there. 30 Jacob named the place Peniel, “because I’ve seen God face-to-face, and my life has been saved.”
--
This is a fairly well-known Bible story of Jacob wrestling with God unexpectedly during a hard time in his life. Our lives are sometimes full of struggle and wrestling, isn’t it?

We struggle in our relationships. It can be hard to navigate conflict and how to make peace with people when we’ve been wronged. Maybe sometimes we have wronged them.

We struggle in our jobs. Some folks find it hard to show up because it feels like current economics can be exploitive. But they have to do what they have to for survival.

We struggle in our communities. We find it hard to live as good neighbors. We have a heightened sense of security, which can lead us to be afraid of one another. And as a result, we can make decisions that inequitably build literal and figurative fences. We build them thinking they keep others out but actually become self-imposed prisons.

In our faith, we might find it hard to feel God’s presence in different seasons. It’s a struggle sometimes to even associate with being Christian because of bad actors. Maybe it’s a struggle to hear God’s voice because so many worries and anxieties speak to us when we’re awake and when we’re sleeping.

Now, here’s the thing. I don’t want us to get obsessed with struggling because at a certain point it becomes masochistic—enjoying pain being inflicted on us. At the same time, to ignore struggle is to suppress and hold back from dealing with what’s right in front of us.

What Jacob’s story illumines for us is that when we go through hard times, we are changed by it. When we struggle, we’re never the same. We may carry wounds. But those wounds could be a testament for others to see that you made it through and to encounter the God who walked beside us as you went through it.

The story of God and the testimony of God’s people tell us that dark days don’t last always. God, whose very essence is love, always has the final say. So, I pray as we wrestle, individually and collectively, that we remain persistent and faithful. May we pay attention to the ways we are forever changed. And may we mark the place and time in which we encountered God. And may we live a life that tells all who would hear it, about a God whom we met unexpectedly—in a way which seems to be like face-to-face. ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

1 week ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Friday, August 28
What Outlasts the Dust?
by Judy Rowell

I was house sitting recently in a home on the side of a mountain near Seattle, with a view spectacular enough to make you forget your own house exists. It belonged to my cousin, the sister I never had. Her father died young, and since our mothers were sisters, that loss threw us together, and we were best friends growing up, fifty miles apart. She had early onset dementia, and she's been gone a while now. This week I'm here with her grandchildren and pets, her husband overseas, surrounded every day by the things she loved.

We were collectors, she and I. Weekend after weekend we hit thrift shops, auctions, flea markets, hunting for the next great find. She used to tell me that if I lived long enough, I'd collect everything there is to collect. She wasn't wrong. My rule has always been: two of something is a set, three is a collection you're obligated to honor. I know that's an excuse. I don't care. But here's what's been sitting with me all week, watching her treasures gather dust: I still recognize every piece, and remember the day she found half of them. But it is just stuff now.

I haven't fallen out of love with collecting. But something shifts as you get older. The stuff was never really the point; it was the excuse. The thrill of the hunt was a good reason to spend a Saturday with someone you loved. The pottery, the children's book — those were just the vehicle. The friendship was the cargo. Once you understand that, the object loses its grip on you. That's why I'm giving mine away as fast as I can now, not because I stopped liking the things, but because I finally understand what I was collecting all along, and it wasn't china.

So here's the lesson this house keeps teaching me: what's permanent is never what you can put on a shelf. It's our core beliefs, our principles, the love we shared, built out of nothing fancier than gas money and good company. It's the grace we received and the grace we managed to bestow on someone else. None of that gathers dust.
Her things will find new homes, or they won't. Either way, they were never the inheritance. What she left behind is sitting in this house with me right now: grandchildren, a husband still grieving her, and a cousin who can't stop thinking about her. That's the collection that counts.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy... but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." — Matthew 6:19-21 ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

1 week ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Thursday, August 27
Can I Wake You Up If There's a Spider In the Cabin?
by Allie McMurry

One of my favorite camping moments this summer was when Sindri (a 1st grader) was asking Brooklyn (one of our Summer Interns) all the reasons for which she was allowed to come wake Brooklyn up in the middle of the night.

Spider in the cabin does not make the list. Tarantula does.

At night when I was laughing to myself about this interaction, I reflected on how from my perspective the summer interns are so helpful because I can make so much more happen with their help than I could alone. They have ideas and suggestions that benefit the children's ministry, and on a practical side, they clean the ice chests after Night Owl Camp.

But more valuable than both of those perspectives, is the relationships they build with the children. Children get excited to tell the interns about their weeks on Sunday morning. James, one of the staff kids, requests that David be the intern who walks him down to the Alternative Worship service where his parents serve every week. Watching children bond with our Summer Interns has become one of my favorite parts of the job.

At this same camp, Ben Pascoe, was the Worship leader, and he was a VLT when I was a child. I remember Ben at camp when I was a kid!

Our Summer Intern program does so much more than provide me and Keith with the practical help we need to make all the summer activities happen. It provides children with the opportunity to connect with a new young adult who cares about them and shares their faith. To a kid, it's an example of a cool a young person who is involved in the church. What a beautiful ministry in our church and a perfect example of intergenerational ministry. Thank you to our awesome summer interns, our parents for bringing their kids to all the summer things, and to the whole congregation for your support of this program!

This simple moment reminded me to think deeper and find the beauty in the small moments from camp! I encourage you to find the meaning in the small moments this week too! ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

2 weeks ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Wednesday, August 26
Pothos Promise
by Lenox Johnson

In my bedroom, I have a corner with a prayer candle that I light when I journal or need some time of peace. I recently rearranged this corner and added my favorite plant. It is a pothos plant that was cultivated from the pothos that my grandma kept in her living room throughout my childhood. Many happy Christmases, Thanksgivings, sleepovers, and movie nights have been spent around that original plant. It’s been a part of the Johnson family since before I was born, and grandma’s pothos now sits in my parent’s kitchen, watching my niece and nephew’s childhoods unfold in the same way it did mine. To say I love my little cutting from that pothos plant is an understatement. I took it from the original plant shortly after my grandma passed away, and for the last few years it has been a living connection to her and my grandpa.

When rearranging my prayer corner, I made the mistake of letting its vine fall too close to my prayer candle’s glass. I didn’t realize until it was too late that the heated glass from the burning candle scorched the vine. I was devastated. I spent weeks nursing it and grew ever more worrisome as each leaf yellowed. I tried pruning it and changing the water, and even some strongly worded petitions to the Most High, but nothing seemed to work. Just as I was about to give up and try with a new cutting, a tiny little light green sprout peaked out close to the roots of the plant. Life! The roots were still alive! Thank the Lord! With this new growth, I felt confident to cut off the old vine, and since then, it’s doing well. The leaf has unfolded and there is another growing right behind it.

What a sermon my pothos has been. Sometimes I feel like I am that plant. Something scorches me and my leaves yellow. I think that the blow is too much, and all hope is lost. Yet, always, something new sprouts. My roots are still alive and there is something on the horizon to look forward to. I unfurl new leaves and continue to grow my vine. My pothos’ roots are sustained by the water I keep it in, and much the same, I am sustained by the living water of the Spirit, a cutting of the true vine of Christ. So, if you feel scorched, if you feel your leaves begin to yellow, remember your roots are sustained in the deep waters of God, and you are cut from that true vine of Christ who has watched you since birth and will continue to watch over the generation who come after you. ... See MoreSee Less

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

2 weeks ago

Your Boston Avenue #DailyDevotional, Tuesday, August 25
Reflections On Forgiveness: Part 2
by Rev. David Wiggs

Yesterday, there was a list of questions for self-reflection around offense, forgiveness and why we act as we often do. Part two picks up with a general answer, then explores the relationship we have with God and others.

“Well, the answer is we are just doing what comes naturally. That’s what humans sometimes do."

It’s not fun to be angry. It hurts. We never get anywhere. There is no peace—no joy. No one wants to be around us.

Here is the point. We were made by God to be so overwhelmed by God’s love understanding and generosity, that we will gladly do the same for everyone with whom we come in contact. God then ushers us into a new world of gratitude, generosity, joy, and love. Gone are the anger, rancor, and hate. Then we become a channel of God’s mercy and usher others into God’s kingdom – an instrument of peace, if you will. It’s ok to be imperfect when we realize that others are imperfect.

There is a reason why we and others do what we do. It’s all based on our human strengths and weaknesses. Things happen to us or we cause to happen to us that are hard to deal with. Sometimes those experiences cause us to act poorly, but we can do better when we don’t blame others or ourselves.

We can learn to react with mercy, kindness, generosity and understanding just like God does. That kind of reaction, especially when people do mean things, is unexpected, eye opening and contagious. It all flows out of humility – the ability to see others and ourselves as human and understanding that it is ok to be human. It’s ok to be what God created us to be.

In other words, it all flows from God who is the ultimate in humility and understanding. It all flows from [God’s] love.”

Prayer: Dear Creator, We all need to experience forgiveness and the ability to offer forgiveness. You working in us can make it so. May we open our hearts evermore to this work of yours in us. In the Spirit of Christ, we pray. Amen. ... See MoreSee Less