Wesley :: News :

Valley Wesley Summer Activities Calendar

2009-05-20T13:42:00.002-07:00

Still in the Phoenix area for the summer and missing all of your Wesley friends? Or maybe you are an incoming Freshman and want to connect with Wesley right away? Well check-out the list below of Wesley activities you can be involved with over the summer. Contact rob@valleywesley.com if you need more information!

June 3-August 5th- 7PM- Weekly Wednesday night bible study- Tempe First UMC
June 25-28- Annual Conference- Glendale
July 12- 1PM- Swim party- Pastor Dave's house
July 17- Wesley Night at the Movies- time and movie TBA (probably Harry Potter)
August 22- Passport to ASU
August 23- Wesley Council Meeting (tentative)
August 26- First Wesley Wednesday dinner and worship
September 4-7- Labor Day Retreat

Mark your calendars now!!!!

Valley Wesley Annual Report 2009

2009-05-13T10:51:00.003-07:00

Please download the PDF file below to read about everything that went on at Wesley this past school year and for a preview of next year!

WesleyAnnualReport2009pdf

Support Wesley Through Electronic Giving

2009-02-25T16:55:00.003-07:00

Want a way to support Wesley financially through electronic giving? You can now give one time or monthly with your checking account. Simply download the form below, fill it out, and mail it to:

The Wesley Foundation

215 E. University Dr.

Tempe, AZ 85281

We use a company that specializes in church giving programs for United Methodist congregations. If you would like more information please contact valleywesley@gmail.com

If you prefer to use a credit card or your PayPal account then please visit www.valleywesley.com/support.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support for our ministry!

Electronic Giving Agreement

Go to a Diamondbacks Game and Support Wesley!!

2009-02-25T16:45:00.002-07:00

Monday April 13, 2009 is Wesley night at the Chase Field when the Diamondbacks take on the St. Louis Cardinals. Tickets are $15 for a bleacher seat with $7.50 going directly to The Wesley Foundation at ASU. This is a fun way to support campus ministry! For individual tickets please e-mail valleywesley@gmail.com and for group tickets you can download the order form below.

Wesley Diamondbacks 2009 Order Form

Wesley Spring Activities

2009-01-21T08:36:00.001-07:00

Important Dates
• January 30- Freshman pancake brunch @ Pastor Rob’s house 10am-12pm
• February 27-March 1- Wesley Council Retreat in Prescott.
• March 8-13- Spring Break Mission trip to Los Angeles
• April 13- Wesley at the Diamondbacks
• April 29- Final Regular Wesley Worship/Wesley Council Elections
• May 6- End of the Year Banquet
• Habitat For Humanity builds- TBA

Worship Opportunities
• Wednesday Nights during the semester 6-8PM, Ross Hall, TFUMC
• Contemplative Drop-In Service, Wesley Building
• The Journey, Contemporary Worship, Sunday’s 11:30am, Ross Hall, TFUMC
• Ash Wednesday Service, February 25, Pastor Rob Preaching
• Worship in the West District/ASU West, Date TBA

Ongoing Small Groups
• Tuesday’s- Read-to-Me at UMOM 6-8PM
• Thursday’s- Lost/Grey’s/The Office Groups
• Saturday’s Wesley Weekend Madness

Short-term Studies
• Justice Study, Monday’s beginning January 19th
• Immigration Study, Sunday’s @ 10:30 a.m. beginning January 18th
• Lenten Classes, coming soon!

Other Weekly Activities
• Conversation Cafés- Wesley Lounge, Dates and Topics TBA
• Volunteer Opportunities with the Tempe First UMC Urban Outreach Program

Sunday Church Visits
• St. Matthew UMC- February 8th
• Red Mountain UMC- February 15th
• Lakeview UMC- February 22nd
• Dove of the Desert UMC- April 19th
• The Fountains UMC- April 26th
• Dayspring UMC- TBA
• Gilbert UMC- Date TBA

High School seniors are welcome at anytime during the spring semester. Please e-mail ValleyWesley@gmail.com to setup a visit!

December Wesley Newsletter

2008-12-11T11:22:00.002-07:00

Download the December newsletter by right-clicking the link below and saving the PDF file to your computer.

News%20from%20Wesley%20Campus%20Ministry.pdf

Check Out Dr. Matt Hindman's New Book and Support Wesley at the Same Time!

2008-11-17T10:03:00.002-07:00

Former Wesley at ASU Board of Directors chair and ASU professor, Matt Hindman, has released his first book The Mythe of Digital Democracy. You can support him and Wesley by clicking on the Amazon.com link below. When using this link Amazon will pay Wesley a small commission for each book you order. Don't worry, Matt will still get his commission too!

October Update From Pastor Rob

2008-10-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

   As we continue to move through the Fall semester we are as busy as ever here at The Wesley Foundation at ASU. Our second year of full-time ministry has brought new students, leaders, programs, and activities. We now offer a study, activity, or program every day of the week. Our most popular new activity has been our Saturday night "Wesley Weekend Madness Group" where students have been coming together to play football, ultimate Frisbee, and just to hang out. This has given students an alternative to some of the more typical college weekend activities and has encouraged students to bring new friends to see what we are all about.
           This new school year has also brought changes to our intern program. Chris Hoerber is now our intern of development, working to contact Alumni, incoming students, and scheduling church visits. Kyle O'Neal is a gifted singer/songwriter who joins us from Kansas and has been helping to create and lead amazing worship experiences on Wednesday nights. Finally, Craig Sequeira, takes over as our administrative intern, keeping the office (and me) organized.
           In November we will be hosting our first annual "Wesley Open House." This is a chance for anyone to visit us and check out our new Wesley building, our worship service, a concert from Kyle O'Neal, and time to meet many of our students. Dinner, door prizes, and lots of "Guitar Hero" will be provided. Our "Open House" will be held on November 12th from 5-8pm. We hope you will join us.
           Please continue reading our newsletter to get caught up on some of the other things happening with our ministry. Don't forget to learn about the new ways you can support what we are doing.

Peace and Blessings,
Pastor Rob

Wesley Student Reflects on Trip to China

2008-10-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to China for a month this summer with an ASU study abroad program. I wish I could tell you some great lesson I learned in China, some beautiful insight about the way the country works, some little phrase that sums up the Chinese people. I can't do that, though, because it's impossible to reduce a country of 1.3 billion people to a few pithy sentences. It's not that I didn't learn anything; on the contrary, I learned enough to fill two journals with notes, and more that I couldn't express. We often have all of these preconceived ideas about China - that Chinese people are much more conformist than Americans, that the factories are sweatshops run by evil managers, that everyone is an atheist there. And sometimes that's true, but the generalizations are dangerous. I can't tell you what all Chinese people think, or most Chinese, but only what the few that I was lucky enough to come in contact with think. All of these generalizations I mentioned came up one day when we were talking with some college students in Guangdong Province. We had heard that Chinese people are more conformist (or perhaps, respectful) than Americans, and we asked some college students if they would challenge something that a professor said. A few of them said no, definitely not, but one bold girl said that she wouldn't hesitate at all. The students laughed at the difference in their own responses, attributing it to their five-year age gap, being from separate parts of the country, and the subjects they were studying (it was more acceptable to question a law professor than a history professor). We visited a few shoe factories with these students, and the range of their responses to what we saw was somewhat surprising. Of course, no one was going to show a large group of Americans an awful sweat shop, but I am under the impression that what we saw was about average. The workers worked long hours, about sixty per week, and the chemicals smelled terrible, but the conditions were not the worst of the worst that we read about in papers here. We visited the workers' dorm, as factory employees are generally paid partly with room and board, and they lived 2 to a room, with fewer belongings than most of us had brought on the trip. We learned they lived frugally in order to send any extra money back to their families. It's true that they had little in terms of material possessions, but it is also true that they are guaranteed food and housing with their jobs and that the factory owner had started out as one of them. The college students' reactions to this factory tour varied. One older student who had previously been a factory worker said that he thought these workers were probably pretty happy about their jobs, while one more privileged student said that she'd never seen anything like their dorm. Worse conditions undoubtedly exist in China, but many of us had made the mistake of generalizing those conditions to all of China and assuming that all Chinese felt the same way about them.

Martha Wetzel

Wesley Events Calendar

2008-08-20T20:57:00.001-07:00

Wesley Fall 2008 Calendar

August 24-Worship and Pizza

(Free), 11:30-1:30

August 27- Welcome Back Wesley BBQ/Small Group Registration

(Free) 6-8PM

August 29-September 1- San Diego Labor Day Retreat

($25 registration Fee)

September- Ultimate Frisbee, Mini-Golf, and Other Get-To-Know-You Activities

September 3 (and every Wednesday night)- Wesley Night

(Free dinner, followed by worship with communion)*6-8PM

September 18- Diamondbacks Game

($7.50 per ticket, free transportation) 5:30-10:30PM

November 5- Bring a Friend to Wesley Night

(Free dinner, giveaways, and a larger worship experience) 6-8PM

December 10- Wesley Christmas Party at Pastor Rob’s House

(Bring a small gift to exchange) 6-9PM

Looking to Spring Semester

Spring Break Mission Trip, March 7-14, 2009
Diamondbacks Game, April 2009
Wesley Banquet, May 6, 2009
More activities to come!

An update from the Wesley Council president

2008-06-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

by Rachel Lusk, Wesley President

This last month of Wesley flew by and was full of exciting discussions, events, and small groups. The NOOMA and Read to Me groups continued to meet, and we had a variety of community service events, including helping at Habitat for Humanity and feeding the homeless at IHELP. Three new individuals were elected to the Wesley Council: Martha, Grant, and Hayley. We are excited for all that they will contribute! The year came to a close with the end of the year banquet, where the Wesley Board members and students celebrated a very successful year of campus ministry! We recognized all the people who helped make Wesley a success this year, as well as the graduating seniors. It has been a fun and exciting year, and I wish everyone a safe and fun summer! Good luck to all the graduating seniors and I can't wait to see everyone else in the fall for another exciting school year!

Wesley students ready to 'Be the Change'

2008-06-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

by Joyce McHenry, Wesley Historian

Wesley Campus Ministry sent five students from ASU and other Valley colleges to the United Methodist Student Movement's leadership forum in Washington, D.C. from May 21-25. We met with college students from across the United States to discuss legislation that UMSM would like to refine and propose to General Conference 2012; attend workshops based on our areas of interest such as leadership in worship, children's ministries, prayer, and music ministries; as well as taking advantage of being located in D.C. by participating in immersion field trips around Capitol Hill.

We slept very little (if at all) as we were all up late into the night having jam sessions with Nebraska, talking about past Forums with West Virginia and how the "Westvirzonia" group got formed (The students from Marshall and WVU and our students spent a lot of time together last Forum.), as well as eating all the dorm food we could (plus ordering pizza at 5 in the morning because we didn't sleep, had gotten hungry, and still had three hours before breakfast).

We had several very dynamic sermons throughout the weekend but my favorite was Reverend Dorothy who reminded us that God made the world from nothing, and then asked us - what can he do with something, with all of these young people gathered together who have a burning desire to do his work?

We had many great experiences with the diverse group of students that gathered at American University and left feeling spiritually fulfilled and enthusiastic to go back to our churches and campus ministries and "Be the Change" in the church to bring us all forward in our faith.

Wesley joins other ASU campus ministries to support undocumented students

2008-06-07T12:40:00.003-07:00

by Brian Schlemmer, Wesley alumnus

Illegal or undocumented? Economic necessity or drain? Liberal or conservative? Refugee or Terrorist? Each of these questions highlights a particular paradigm through which individuals understand the current immigration crisis in the U.S. and in Arizona in particular. Is immigration a legal issue or an economic issue? A political issue or a national security issue? The answer of course depends upon which of these or any number of other paradigms you choose.

As a young person of faith, struggling with how best to answer scripture and follow Christ in a complex and broken world, my paradigm has led me to questions much different from those I hear in the current immigration debate. For instance, as I read Leviticus 19:33-34, my questions become, "Are we mistreating the alien in our midst?" and "Are we treating the alien as the native-born among us?" As I read Matthew 25:31-46, my questions become, "Who are the strangers whom Jesus calls 'the least of these'?" and "Do we welcome Christ when he comes to us as a stranger?" As a young person of faith, these are the questions that haunt me as I hear people dismissed as "illegals," or when I see a constant move in the state that is my home to eliminate health care, educational opportunities, and a right to safety for our sisters and brothers who are aliens in our midst. But I now know that as a young person of faith, I am not alone.

The students of Wesley Campus Ministry at Arizona State University, in collaboration with the students of the Newman Center and the campus Episcopal and Lutheran groups have decided to take up God's call to care for the strangers in our midst. In response to the 2006 proposition which eliminated funding sources for undocumented university students in the state of Arizona, and began charging them out-of-state tuition regardless of where they live or where they graduated high school, the students of these campus ministries have developed the "I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me" scholarship. This scholarship will go toward giving undocumented students living in Arizona access to education at ASU, affirming the United Methodist Church's stance that access to education is a basic human right, and the Biblical teaching that all people are created in the image of God.

I am proud to be a part of this courageous ministry, and I hope that you will be, too. If you would like to donate to the scholarship campaign, please make checks payable to the ASU Wesley Foundation, marking "I Was a Stranger" in the notes. If you're not yet ready to embrace this vision of ministry in our neighborhoods, we'd invite you to talk with us about it. Together we can explore what it means to be a faithful people in a complex world. That is what it means to be the body of Christ.

Brian Schlemmer is a student at the Theological School at Drew University and a candidate for ministry in the Desert Southwest Annual Conference. He is a graduate of ASU where he was an active member of Wesley Campus Ministry.

New Scholarship Application Available

2008-05-23T07:52:00.002-07:00

United Methodist Federal Credit Union is proud to announce our 2008
Rev. Dr. Frank Witman Scholarship Award Competition

We will award four $500 scholarships

This year’s scholarship competition will begin in June. Details of the competition will be available at the United Methodist Annual Conferences as well as on our web site at www.umfcu.org . You may also contact our office at (800) 245-0433 for information.

Requirements are:

United Methodist FCU membership required (becoming a member is easy, call (602) 277-5325 and tell them you are a college student and a member of Wesley Campus Ministry at ASU and Rob Rynders is your pastor)
A minimum GPA of 3.0 (transcripts must be submitted)
Scholarships are available for high school and college students
Write a comprehensive essay (500 words or less). This year’s topic is: How will you utilize your UMFCU account to benefit and enhance your financial future?

Transcripts and essay must be submitted no later than August 31, 2008 to

United Methodist FCU
Attention: Education Committee
5405 E. Arrow Highway, Suite 104
Montclair, CA. 91763

Any further questions, please contact:

Contact: Ben Sarracino, Business Development Officer
DSW Office
E-mail: ben@umfcu.org

A word from Rob to high school graduates

2008-05-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

Attending ASU or another Valley college or technical school in the fall? Whether you are looking to begin or continue your spiritual journey we hope you will check out one of our many welcome events when the semester starts. Until then, we want to know who you are so we can get to know you better and you can get to know us. Sign up for our e-newsletter or send an e-mail to valleywesley (at) gmail.com to request more information. You can also stay up to date right here at ValleyWesley.com. Keep checking back as we will be adding many exciting new features including an interactive prayer section to the site. Congratulations on graduating from high school, we look forward to meeting you soon! Many blessings on you during your summer break.

Oh yeah, you don't have to be an incoming freshman to check out our ministry. Wesley is made up of all sorts of undergraduate students, graduate students, and those from community colleges and technical schools. While many students have United Methodist backgrounds we have many students who are not currently or have never been Methodist. We hope you will join us too!

Peace,
Pastor Rob

Local United Methodists in the limelight at General Conference

2008-05-03T00:22:00.007-07:00

United Methodists from Arizona have made their voices heard at the 2008 General Conference of The United Methodist Church, which wrapped up Friday in Fort Worth, Texas.

As a delegate representing the Desert Southwest Annual Conference, the church's regional division that covers Arizona and southern Nevada, ASU economics junior Devin Mauney introduced legislation to the 992-member conference and also spoke from the floor about other items.

General Conference, the only body that can officially speak for The United Methodist Church, meets every four years to revise the church's law book and issue resolutions about social issues. Wesley is a ministry of the UMC.

One of Mauney's speeches from the floor attracted praise from another college-age delegate who commented on his "creativity and passion" and said the speech "was met with wild applause."

Mauney was also profiled in the church's Daily Delegate video feature on April 29, a day that he said was "full of amendments." The video is available in Windows Media or Flash video format.

Desert Southwest's other voting delegate at the conference was Rev. Sharon Ragland, a member of Wesley's Board of Directors. Former Wesley directors Rev. Gary Kennedy and Rev. Jane Tews also attended the conference.

(From left) Tews, Ragland and Kennedy attend a rally that called for humane treatment of immigrants. (Photos courtesy of Desert Southwest Annual Conference)

Outside the convention center that hosted General Conference, ASU graduate and Wesley alum Brian Schlemmer attracted the attention of a United Methodist News Service writer during an April 26 rally.

Young people speaking at the rally — including Schlemmer, who's now a student at Drew Theological Seminary and chairs the OnFire organization — advocated for changes in the UMC's policies regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

A video of Schlemmer's speech is available on YouTube.

"We are here today arm in arm waiting outside the doors, these closed doors," Schlemmer said. "We're waiting arm in arm for that day that the doors open up."

The church's law book calls homosexuality "incompatible with Christian teaching" and prohibits openly gay people from becoming ordained ministers. An effort to change that language failed when it came up for a vote later in the week.

Also speaking to other United Methodists in Fort Worth was Desert Southwest Bishop Minerva Carcaño, who preached the General Conference's Sunday morning sermon on April 27.

A short video clip from the sermon, entitled "A Hope Beyond Ourselves," is available in Windows Media or QuickTime format. A transcript and MP3 of the full sermon are also available.

For more information about General Conference, visit gc2008.umc.org.

Dinner, dancing at April 30 banquet

2008-04-24T10:03:00.005-07:00

Wesley Banquet
Wednesday, April 30
7 p.m.
Ross Hall
Semi-formal attire

Wesley Campus Ministry will host a year-end banquet featuring dinner and dancing on Wednesday, April 30.

The Wesley Banquet, held at 7 p.m. in Ross Hall at Tempe First United Methodist Church, is free for students, $25 for supporters and $50 for board members. Dress for the event is semi-formal.

As with our usual Wednesday night gatherings, dinner will be provided. To celebrate the end of the school year, we'll also have a DJ on hand for dancing, and we'll be presenting a slideshow with pictures from throughout the year.

General Conference underway in Texas

2008-04-23T10:23:00.002-07:00

Almost 1,000 United Methodists — including an ASU student — are meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, to set the policy and direction of The United Methodist Church for the next four years.

The 2008 General Conference of The United Methodist Church got underway on Wednesday, April 23. Wesley is a ministry of The United Methodist Church.

General Conference is the church's top legislative assembly, which meets every four years.

Over the next week and a half, 992 delegates will consider proposals to revise the church's rules and policies found in the Book of Discipline and to change and add new resolutions stating the church's position on various issues. General Conference is the only body that can officially speak for the 11.5 million-member United Methodist Church.

Among this year's delegates is ASU economics junior Devin Mauney, who is one of two delegates representing the Desert Southwest Annual Conference, the church's regional division that covers Arizona, southern Nevada and a small portion of southeastern California.

To learn more about General Conference, see a webcast of the proceedings and track legislation, visit GC2008.umc.org.

It's a Colby!

2008-04-11T16:03:00.001-07:00

Colby Glenn Rynders, the first child of Wesley Director Rob Rynders and his wife Melissa, was born on April 11. Delivered by C-section at a Scottsdale hospital, Colby weighed in at 7 lbs 1 oz.

For more information, check out this post on the Rynders' blog.

Practice Peace For Lent

2008-02-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

Download and excellent peace devotional for lent from the link below. Make this Lenten season a time for being a peacemaker.

http://desertsouthwestconference.org/churchsociety

A new way to support Wesley

2008-01-23T01:59:00.000-07:00

Wesley Campus Ministry now accepts monetary donations online through the PayPal system, which allows donors to safely and securely use their MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover card or a PayPal account.

To donate online, click here:

Donating online is the newest way to support the work of Wesley Campus Ministry in the Valley of the Sun, and there are many more ways to show your support.

For information on providing meals for our Wednesday-night gatherings, sending students our way or becoming a supporting church, click here to visit the new Support Our Ministry section of our Web site.

Another way to support Wesley is by joining us to see the Arizona Diamondbacks play the San Francisco Giants on Monday, April 21. For more information on our D-Backs fundraiser, click here.

Ways to support Wesley

2008-01-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

by Rob Rynders

While many of you currently support Wesley, here are some ways other you can support our ministry:

• This spring we are teaming up with the Arizona Diamondbacks to offer Wesley supporters tickets to see the Diamondbacks play the San Francisco Giants on Monday, April 21. Anyone who makes a donation to The Wesley Foundation at ASU of $10 or more will get a bleacher ticket to that game. Additional tickets can be purchased for $7.50 each for students attending a Valley college or university and non-student tickets for $15.

• If you are an alumnus or alumna of our ministry, we would love to know who you are so we can add you to our e-mail list and keep you up to date with what we are doing. Plus you can be informed any future ASU Wesley alumni gatherings.

• Finally, our most successful way to do ministry with more students is to know who they are. If you have any high school seniors who are planning to attend ASU or any other Valley college or university please pass those names along with all forms of contact information along to us. Even if they are not attending school locally we can pass that information on to the United Methodist campus ministry where they will be attending, even if they are going out of state!

To donate, order D-Backs tickets for April 21, join our alumni list, pass along student names, or ask any questions please e-mail me at rrynders@asu.edu.

Spring '08 update

2008-01-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

by Rob Rynders

As the spring semester begins at ASU, I cannot help but be excited for what is in store for the Wesley Foundation in the coming months.

Last semester saw record attendance at our Wednesday night dinner and worship gatherings, averaging more than 30 students per week! We expect our attendance to grow even more each semester. Our new Wesley offices and lounge opened at First Tempe UMC, giving students a place to take a break, study, have wireless Internet access, grab a snack and hang out with other students. Our students also had a sense of mission and outreach. Students volunteered with Sidewalk Sunday School, the Walk for Diabetes and after-school programs in Phoenix.

In March, during spring break, 10 Wesley students will head to New Orleans to help repair the People’s UMC as they continue to recover from Katrina. We will also be kicking off our faith sharing groups and introducing more service and mission opportunities for students over the semester.

Work continues to bring campus ministry to the Downtown and Polytechnic ASU campuses, as well as Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Having full-time United Methodist campus ministry at ASU for the first time since the 1970s would not be possible without your help. Thanks to you and our other supporting churches we are able to do effective ministry at the world’s largest university.

Sermon: An Unexpected Christmas Vacation

2007-12-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

"An Unexpected Christmas Vacation"
Rev. Rob Rynders
Tempe First UMC, December 30th, 2007

A few years ago an American Christian missionary stationed in Bethlehem was called back to the United States for an important meeting. She woke up the morning of her flight back to the US and finished getting ready for her trip. She left her small house near the church and found a taxicab to take her to the Palestinian side of the checkpoint. She would need to get past the guards at the checkpoint in order to get into Jerusalem where a shuttle would take her to the airport.

Getting through the checkpoint was easy though as she showed her American passport to the military personnel and explained she was a pastor heading to the airport. She realized though that she was leaving at a tense time in Israeli/Palestinian relations. During the past few weeks there had been a couple of suicide bombings carried out by extremist groups and there had been a clash between the army and Muslim worshipers as they left Friday prayers at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in all of Islam. The Israeli government had been threatening to enter the West Bank to try to root out some of the extremists.

But as she moved through to the other end of the checkpoint she was met with a more horrifying site than she could have imagined: tanks and jeeps and soldiers were lined up down the highway as far as she could see. There had been no communication of this buildup on the other side of the wall. There was nothing she could do but to dial her cell phone and make a phone call to the pastor of the church to tell him to begin telling residents to find shelter from the immanent military incursion into the city. In a few hours the military would enter the city to begin searching houses and firing mortars and tank shells into neighborhoods where some young men had taken up arms in response to the new occupation. The majority of the residents of Bethlehem, however, would spend the next few weeks huddled in their homes in terror waiting for the violence to end and many of them would fall victim to the violence losing homes, businesses, loved ones or all three.

When I traveled to Bethlehem, which is located in West Bank Palestine, at this time two years ago a large wall, much like the Berlin wall, and a very large and an even more fortified check point had just finished being constructed, cutting off Bethlehem and the rest of West Bank Palestine from Jerusalem and other parts of Israel. Only those with approved forms of identification could move from Bethlehem to Jerusalem through the checkpoint. While I was there I could see no signs of upheaval and I always felt safe during my two weeks there, however, there were still many signs of what had happened just a few years earlier. When you go to Bethlehem today you can still see the bullet holes in the sides of the buildings and you can hear the stories of those who were caught in the crossfire.

Contrasting this image of Bethlehem in recent years and today’s scripture story we find many similarities. While Bethlehem is known as the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, throughout history it has not been a very peaceful place.

Today’s scripture passage is about the holy family having to escape from Bethlehem in order to avoid the violent jealousy of Herod and his attempt to kill Jesus. Herod has ordered that the army kill all the young babies under two years old because he has heard that the possible Messiah has been born and to him the coming of the Messiah threatens his oppressive rule over Israel.

As the story goes, shortly after Jesus is born, Joseph is warned by an Angel to take his family and flee to Egypt in order to avoid Herod’s wrath. They take an unexpected Christmas vacation to Egypt and remain there until Herod’s death, when it is safe to return.

The writer of Matthew wants to be clear in the telling of this story. This story is an echo of the birth of Moses and Moses leading God’s people Israel into a new beginning. Through this story Matthew is lifting up the importance of Jesus as God’s representative on earth and his primacy as the one who will lead us from the darkness of the world to the light of God’s love in Christ.

What does this story from Matthew say for us today? Where does this not so cheery Christmas story intersect with our lives and our modern world? How does this story of such violence that follows the birth of Jesus Christ fit into the Christmas season? Perhaps United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon offers and the beginnings of an answer. He writes in one of his own sermons about this story from Matthew, “And even though it’s not the Christmas story we want, it may be the Christmas story we need. For any God who is unwilling to come to Bethlehem, won’t do us much good. If any God is going to save us, us, God will have to come to where we are, because we can’t get to God.”

Indeed Christ came into a world of uncertainty, a world that was controlled by an unjust government and religious structure. A world that would seek to stamp out the light of God as soon as it came into the world, no matter the cost. A world where, in Matthew’s eyes, a little baby would be forced to flee for his life.

There are so many times in our lives where we feel that God has fled from our lives or even the world all together. Or there are even those times where we ourselves want to run from God. I am reminded of these more of these stories in the bible like that of the prodigal son, who took his inheritance and ran away from his responsibilities or the disciples abandoning Jesus soon after his arrest.

There are so many times where we feel that God has abandoned us or that God is no longer relevant in our lives, however, we don’t realize that God is indeed always with us inviting us to be in a relationship with God and the world. Of course the prodigal son returned and was welcomed with open arms and the disciples would go on to start and grow the church. We are able to turn these moments of despair around when we realize God has been right under our noses the whole time and we do not have to seek for God in other places.

When adversity strikes it can be so easy to pack up our things and run the other way, to start new and to put the past behind us. When we are faced with adversity, a bad family situation, a loss of a loved one, uncertainty in our jobs, health problems, when can feel lost and hopeless and these are the places where the light of Christ can shine through those dark times when we allow it to. We must be transformed through those times and experience God’s healing so we may return as a light to the world. God does not run from us but encounters us and is God with us during our times and the world’s times of darkness.
Jesus did not come into the world without adversity and spent most of his life bringing the transformative love of God into difficult situations. Jesus returned to his homeland and shined as a light of hope and love for the world. Jesus calls us to shine as a light in the world today and he calls us to stand up in the face of darkness and be a light for our families, our friends, co-workers, neighbors, our church and our communities.

In the darkest and maybe not so dark places we can proclaim the Christ of love, justice, and peace. Those places can be far away places like Darfur, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and not so distant places like New Orleans, Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, and yes, even places like Bethlehem.

Today Christians make up only a very small minority of the population in Bethlehem, however, many of them are shining their light in hopes of peace and reconciliation. With every reason to leave their homeland they have heeded God’s call to stay and represent the biblical birthplace of their savior in lives of peace and justice.

The phone call that the Christian missionary, who I spoke about earlier, made after she made it through the Bethlehem checkpoint was to Mitri Raheb, an Arab Palestinian Christian, a Lutheran pastor at the Christmas Lutheran church in Bethlehem. He is also the director of the International Center, an organization that hosts faith based groups from all over the world that take part in immersion experiences to learn about the biblical history of Israel and Palestine as well as engaging them in the modern day culture and politics of the Holy Lands. Mitri was born and raised in Bethlehem and was raising his family there as well. Despite the history of the city, this was his home and it was his family’s home. He was there during the intifada’s, or uprisings of Palestinians against Israeli occupation, one of which ended with a long military standoff at the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

In his book Bethlehem Besieged he recalls huddling in his house with his family as gunshots went off and tank shells exploded outside their home. He also recalls a dangerous encounter with Israeli soldiers as he ventured out of his home after the shooting stopped to check on the church and the international center.

Most inspiring, however, is the story he recalls of a candlelight vigil that he organized with other religious leaders during the dangerous days of the military occupation. While some young Palestinian men were attempting to engage the Israeli army with violence during this time, most of the residents of Bethlehem were left to feel like hostages in their own homes as the skies at night would light up with the firing of artillery, gunfire, and explosions.

The Christian and Muslim community, however, grew tired of the fighting and the military presence and began to approach members of their community to invite them to participate in a vigil for peace. Their goal was to light up Bethlehem not with weapons but with candles. They knew that this was a dangerous proposal as the Israeli military could see a large group of people as they threat and could respond violently to them. The organizing went on and to everyone’s surprise over two thousand people showed up on the night of the vigil and they even ran out of candles to give to marchers. They walked through the streets of Bethlehem to show that they were not thugs or terrorists and they did not represent the few that used violence to represent their culture. They also marched as a symbol of peace and hope in the face of a military force that did little to protect the innocent. The night ended when a statement was read, a statement that ended proclaiming, “We are marching tonight to give a message of hope and light to people around the world seeking justice and freedom. We are marching tonight to overcome fear and to light a candle for hope. We are marching in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, to call upon all of you to break your silence and play an active role for the cause of peace and justice, so that the light of the resurrection would shine again upon Jerusalem.” While the people of Bethlehem still live with the reality of the uncertainty of violence they took this moment to let the light of Christ shine through them to the world so that they may live in a little less darkness and fear.

So where and how will your light shine? This next semester I will be challenging all of our Wesley students to volunteer with a ministry of outreach at least once a month if not more. To volunteer with places like the United Methodist Outreach Mission in Phoenix, with an after school program at a church in the area, with Sidewalk Sunday School or with the Urban Outreach Program here at 1st Tempe. I challenge all of us here today to do the same, to take a little time out of our lives to shine the light of Christ in the world.

Earlier in the service we all took part in welcoming a new member into our church family through baptism and we all reaffirmed our baptismal vows together. In and through our baptismal vows, we renounce the powers of evil that enslave and mangle the world and pledge to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves as Christ's representatives in the world. Perhaps today those vows can be our new years resolutions, or even better, our all the time resolutions – to remember that Christ has come into our lives in the midst of great adversity to shine his light in and through us to the entire world. So may you go, arise, shine out, and proclaim that God’s light has indeed come. Amen.

'Mean Girls' at Rob's: Dec. 20

2007-12-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

This Thursday night, join Pastor Rob (and Belle!) at the parsonage to watch Mean Girls.

The movie, which features Lindsay Lohan as a home-schooled student who transfers to a public high school and learns the ways of "girl world," starts at 7 p.m.

Word on the street is that Rob hasn't seen the 2004 hit film. Some Wesley students have made references to the movie this semester that Rob just didn't get. So put down the burn book, pick up a Kälteen bar, and come on over to help our campus minister become so fetch.