Posts by Bob Rhodes

Introduction This is the final week of Dreaming the Future, our October stewardship series. As United Methodists, we promise to support the ministries of the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and John Wesley’s third rule about money is “give all you can.” Most of us can remember someone bringing a meal when we were sick or giving us a ride to an appointment. How do we say thank you for what we’ve received? In Luke 19, Jesus…

Introduction This is week three of Dreaming the Future, a four-week stewardship series built on Earn. Save. Give. by James A. Harnish and Enough by Adam Hamilton. As United Methodists, we promise to support the ministries of the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and how we save is part of keeping that promise. We save for a home, a family, or a rainy day. Who are we saving for, and who does it all belong to? In Matthew 22, Jesus is…

Introduction This is week two of Dreaming the Future, a four-week stewardship series built on Earn. Save. Give. by James A. Harnish and Enough by Adam Hamilton. As United Methodists, we promise to support the ministries of the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and John Wesley’s first rule about money is “gain all you can” (which Harnish updates to “earn”). For most of us, our days are filled with work: jobs, classrooms, households, volunteer shifts. In Luke 16, Jesus tells his…

Introduction This is week one of Dreaming the Future, a four-week stewardship series built on two books by United Methodist pastors: Earn. Save. Give.: Wesley’s Simple Rules for Money by James A. Harnish, and Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity by Adam Hamilton. As United Methodists, we promise to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and that is the whole of stewardship. Questions about money often start with amounts: how much we earn, how much we owe, how much…

Introduction This is the final week of Knowing Who We Are, six weeks drawn from Rev. Dr. Laceye Warner’s book of the same name. We started with the grace God pours into us, then followed it through connexion, small groups, mission, and scripture. Methodists speak of going on to perfection, growing in grace across a lifetime. People grow in faith slowly, and much of what forms them happens through repetition, in work that seldom feels like formation at the time. In…

Introduction We’re nearing the end of our series, Knowing Who We Are, drawn from the book of the same name by Rev. Dr. Laceye Warner. So far we have explored the grace God pours into us, the connexion we belong to, the small groups of early Methodists, and the neighbors God sends us to serve. This week we turn to the texts that inform and shape us. Wesley called himself a person of one book, writing, “At any price, give me…

Introduction This is week two of “Knowing Who We Are,” six weeks on the Wesleyan way of grace. Last Sunday we started with the grace we receive from God. This week we look at the people God puts us among. Methodists spell connexion with an x because that’s how Wesley spelled it, and we keep this spelling to remember that we are connected to one another even back into our own tradition. La Jolla UMC isn’t on its own! We…

Introduction This Sunday begins Knowing Who We Are, a six-week series in our year of considering what it means to be United Methodist. Recently, we have explored our history and our baptismal promises, and over these next six weeks, we’ll journey through grace, our practice of faith, and look again at our beliefs as United Methodists. In 1742, John Wesley asked, “Who is a Methodist?” His answer, rooted in Romans 5:5, was that a Methodist is one who has the love…

Introduction This is the final Sunday of Our Baptismal Vows, our summer series on the promises of the United Methodist baptismal covenant. We’ve renounced the powers that diminish us, accepted the freedom God gives us to resist evil and injustice, confessed Jesus Christ as Savior, and promised to nurture one another in faith. The fifth and final promise is the profession of faith itself, the central words of the Apostles’ Creed: to believe in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy…

Introduction We’re four weeks into Our Baptismal Vows, our series walking through the promises of the United Methodist baptismal covenant one Sunday at a time. So far we’ve renounced the powers that diminish us, accepted the freedom God gives us to resist evil and injustice, and confessed Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The fourth promise is addressed to the congregation rather than to the one being baptized: will you nurture one another in the Christian faith and life, and include…

Introduction We’re three weeks into Our Baptismal Vows, our series walking through the promises of the United Methodist baptismal covenant one Sunday at a time. So far we’ve renounced the powers that diminish us and accepted the freedom God gives us to resist evil and injustice. The third promise is confession: to confess Jesus Christ as Savior, to put our whole trust in his grace, and to serve him as Lord, in union with the Church he has opened to people…

Introduction Last week we began Our Baptismal Vows, our series on the promises of the United Methodist baptismal covenant, and we started with renunciation: turning away from the powers that diminish us. This week we consider the second promise: to accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. That freedom is God’s gift, and it is given first so that we are better equipped to give ourselves to others.…