Director's Blog

It’s been a good, long break, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely.  But as much as I enjoyed the break, I am feeling great this evening – I put in a good day’s work today, and I am very much looking forward to being back at the Wesley Foundation with the students.  I’ve spent much of this week getting ready for the semester to start: lining up guest speakers for our “Introduction to the World’s Religions” seminar; finalizing plans for Dr. Brown’s lecture series; organizing visits to 10th Street UMC and the Emory Wesley Fellowship; readying our worship space for our annual Remembrance of Baptism; and even arranging for the Tech Wesley students to spend time with Wesley students from the University of Miami.

Vacations are good for us – mind, body, and spirit.  So is the ordinary rhythm of life lived in sync with the Divine, and I am looking forward to entering back into the rhythm of the semester.

We just finished putting together the Fall 2010 edition of “The Corner of Fourth and Fowler,” the semester newsletter of the Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech.  It “drops” on December 1 (that means it will get mailed that day).  721 physical newsletters will go out on Wednesday, as well as 40 digital versions.

You can read the newsletter here, before the offical “drop date”:  The Corner of Fourth and Fowler – Fall 2010

I am grateful to the following students for their help with the newsletter: Jena Gilbert, Carolyn Granade, Adam Isabel, Shane Lympany, Kyle Manweiler, Ryan McGowan, Patrick Mize, Kristi Painter, Anna Peterson, Gregory Philips, Karla Van Rensburg, and Kellie Zeigler; and our interns: Roy DuBose, Jenni Hendrix, and Sam Lewis.

Enjoy the newsletter!

Steve

Every year, Kathy, Reed, Lucy, and I spend Thanksgiving in Pensacola, Florida, with Kathy’s family.  This year, I had to work overtime to get the Wesley Foundation end-of-semester newsletter ready for the printer before leaving town.  Working on the newsletter gives me an opportunity to reflect on the previous semester.  It also energizes me as I prepare for a new semester.  This was especially true this year.

The leadership provided by the interns and students has been nothing short of magnificent this semester.  In addition to our traditional small groups, service projects, and fellowship events, we had a wonderful Welcome Week full of activities.  We also, for the first time in a long time, sponsored an intramural volleyball team that actually finished above .500!

Having strong student / intern leadership allowed me to pursue more ambitious projects, too – two books studies on Thursday evenings,  and another book study incorporated into our Thursday morning Bible Study.  The student interest in these studies has led to the offering of a five-part lecture series and a ten-part study of world religions in Spring semester.

I am thankful for the community called the Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech, and I am grateful for each member of this community.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday!

Steve

Fall semester is quickly coming to an end. Our Monday night programming has been scheduled out through finals week; our Options classes for Spring semester have been submitted; the Board of Directors is getting close to finalizing our budget for 2011. During this season, the lectionary is taking us through the letters to the Thessalonians. There are two seemingly contradictory – though actually complementary -messages found in these two letters. The message of 1 Thessalonians is “the end is almost here” … get your affairs in order, wrap up loose ends, finish what you’ve started, because the time is growning short! 2 Thessalonians, on the other hand, proclaims “Not yet!” … continue to do what you need to do, don’t be afraid to take on something new, there’s still time.

As we look forward to a new semester, don’t forget to finish this semester! As we work towarads the end of this semester, don’t forget there’s another semester right around the corner!

P. S. -the first post on the interns’ blog is up – “Where did Cain’s wife come from?” Check it out! http://www.gtwf.org/interns

… since I last blogged! But it is time to start again, because as any police-show detective would tell you, I have both the motive and the opportunity!

Motive – our three Candler interns, who noticed that neither Karla (our fall semester president) nor I have been blogging, decided that they needed a blog! They are intent on out-blogging us, which would not have been such a hard feat if they hadn’t challenged us. But since we’ve been challenged, I’ve found my motive for blogging.

Opportunity -it is customary for our Candler interns to preach at least once every semester. Jenni Hendrix preached last Sunday (November 7), Sam Lewis will preach on November 21, and Roy DuBose will preach on December 5. In addition, Ed Kilbourne will be here on November 14, and we won’t have service on November 28 as we will all be away for the Thanksgiving holiday. All that to say – I am in the midst of a six-week preaching hiatus! My next sermon will be on December 12 … followed by another three-week hiatus for semester break. Does it need to be said that I have plenty of opportunity for blogging???

Two references from this morning’s sermon:

• At its inception, the tagline for the website http://www.beliefnet.com was “We all believe in something.”  The website collects traditions and practices from a vast array of belief systems.  Although there is a danger of promoting relativism, and downplaying each tradition’s distinctive characteristics, overall it is a website well worth visiting.
• John Wesley understood the concept of “grace” as having three elements: preventing (prevenient) grace, justifying grace, and sanctifying grace.  A treatment of Wesley’s understanding of prevenient / preventing grace can be found in his sermon, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation.“

Each of these works was referenced in this morning’s sermon:

Daily Show host Jon Stewart recently quipped that “being Methodist is easy.  It’s like the University of Phoenix of religions.  You send them 50 bucks and click ‘I agree’ and you’re saved.”  This prompted UM Reporter managing editor Robin Russell to ask whether we, the United Methodist Church, are “too bland for our own good?”  http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=7101
In her  new book, Almost Christian, Kendra Creasy Dean claims that the “mutant” form of Christianity most teenagers follow is best described as a “moralistic therapeutic deism”:  http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-27/living/almost.christian_1_teens-share-moralistic-therapeutic-deism-dean-talks?_s=PM:LIVING.  Dean also states that no matter their background, committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.”
In his essay, “Communicating the Christian Message: A Question to Christian Ministers and Teachers,” Paul Tillich argues that in terms of sharing the Gospel, “We are concerned here with the question: How can the Gospel be communicated?  We are asking: How do we make the message heard and seen, and then either rejected or accepted?  The question cannot be: How do we communicate the Gospel so that others will accept it?  For this there can be nomethod.  To communicate the Gospel means putting it before the people so that they are able to decide for or against it.”   http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2522
Although John Wesley’s sermon, “The Good Steward,” is based on Luke 16:2, its message is also helpful in our reflections on Luke 14:33 - http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/51/

Check out the pictures of our pottery painting party at our website, and on Facebook!  Special thanks to Kristen and Michael from the Georgia Tech Craft Center for bringing the plates and paints to the Wesley Foundation (and for agreeing to work on a Friday night); also a special thanks to Heather Magalski for setting the event up for us.

We now have plates to use at Cafe Wesley on Sunday mornings, before Sunday Celebration!

If you are interested in following the goings on at the Wesley Foundation, and receiving invitations / reminders to events, consider becoming a member of the Wesley Foundation through Jacketpages, and becoming a Facebook fan of the Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech.

To become a member of the Wesley Foundation through Jacketpages, you must have a gatech.edu email address.  The link to the Wesley Foundation pages on Jacketpages is http://jacketpages.gatech.edu/Community?action=getOrgHome&orgID=20291.  Once you log in, you can join!

You can join our Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Atlanta-GA/Wesley-Foundation-at-Georgia-Tech/348411335544.  Do I really need to tell you anything else about Facebook?  I’m sure you know far more about Facebook than I do!

I hope you will join the Wesley Foundation through Jacketpages, and become a Facebook fan of the Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech!

- Steve

The Fab Four provided us with fabulous entertainment for the evening.  We began with about 45 minutes of Beatles Rock Band, and then took a break to enjoy some delicious fish and chips prepared by Sam and Jenni.  After dinner, it was back to the Beatles Rock Band.

It’s been a great Welcome Week for the Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech.  We had a great turnout last Sunday, and a lot of fun this week.  I’m looking forward to getting into our regular activities for the semester.

- Steve