It is a question that has been rolling around in my head for a while. The only problem is, how can I get an honest answer? The question is: How much do pastors pray, practice silence and read scripture? It is a simple question, but one, I fear, that many pastors try to avoid. As pastors we believe that we should be spending time in these practices, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we do not spend very much time in either prayer, silence, or formational scripture reading.  

I shared this with a pastor friend of mine and his response was, "Well, we have a lot to do and not a lot of time." I believe his answer was honest and real, but he did not go into detail about how much time was spent in these practices. Other times I have brought it up have been met with a quick subject change. I'm not sure how to understand all of this. 

Read the Rest Here  

If you are reading this, then you found the new UMSource.net page. Yes, there has been complete redesign and even a move to a new server. I hope in the months to come UMSource will be a place to fuel your imagination and vision on what your church can become when it shifts to a missional mindset! 

Over at Allelon there is an article about missional prayer. As a UM, I have a feeling that while we might talk quite a bit about prayer, we talk more than we pray. My experience is that most of the UMs I’ve run into don’t seem to pray that much. Instead, we are way too busy. We are also way to pragmatic to pray. After all, most would say that spending 30 minutes doing something is much more effective than taking 30 minutes to truly pray. For some reason we have fallen for the idea that prayer is something that is good, but there are more important things we could do with our time. How many times have we decided that instead of having a board meeting we will meet and pray?

I know these are broad and general statements, but I believe they hold true. We say all the right things about prayer, but my question is, do we really pray? Of course we might spend time sharing our ‘prayer lists’ with God, but what about deep conversation with God? What about prayer that goes beyond words?
Perhaps it is time for all of us to take prayer more seriously; in our private life, our family life and especially our church life. I’m convinced that to live missionally we must first rediscover the power and practice of prayer. When we do, who knows what we will discover.

Found Hacking Church: How to attend services 52 weeks in a Row about how to go to church 52 weeks in a row. Lifehack is a productivity website that gives tips on how to do things, or do things better. I was surprised to see the list, but it is pretty good. I’m even thinking about saving it back.

The nice thing is that it isn’t written by a pastor, but someone who had struggled to go to church, but has found a way to do it. I love the honesty. Perhaps my favorite ‘hacks’ are the first and third ones.

I found a blog post at Stumbling Into The Kingdom that has caused me to realize that the transition to a Missional based community from a traditional church is a lot more radical than I ever thought. So radical that many, if not most, won’t make the journey.

One of the sections that ‘got me’ was:

For many churches, change won’t come easy; many will never be willing to pay the price of admission to the missional community. But to be fair, it is not surprising that there are many who have already staked their claim in the emerging missional community, who are trying to have their cake and eat it too, and they too will ultimately not be willing to pay the price. For some, emergent is just another spiritually elite, cliquey club they can belong to where they can engage in trendy post-modern conversation without getting their hands dirty in real-life mission work.

I hate to admit it, but I think he might be right. So, where does that leave those of us in traditional churches (UMC) and ministry? I believe it leaves us at a place of reflection and repentance. Are we really willing to pay the price?

I believe the root problem is how we, as Christians, have bought into the American way of life and have allowed our churches to become mini-versions of the culture. We have “benefited” from the system in place. Because of that, we have much to loose (or sacrifice) in a shift to missional.

Perhaps the first shift is to take up our cross by dying to our American lifestyles so we might be able to truly be people of the kingdom. Until we do that, any talk of being missional will end up being another “spiritually elite, cliquey club” that we setup because it is fashionable or serves our purposes. Instead of being about God and God’s kingdom, it becomes about us and our kingdom.

The full article is here.