John Louk

Then [Jesus] said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23 NRSV In his book, Not a Fan , Kyle Idleman shares an interesting distinction between fans and followers. Fans are enthusiastic admirers. Think of all the people who are fans of a sports star or celebrity. The fans might know all kinds of facts and statistics. They might have pictures and books. They probably have a great deal of passion about their particular celebrity. If the fans showed up at the star's door, however, the celebrity wouldn’t know who they are. Idleman, a pastor in Louisville, Kentucky is the son of a pastor. When he was growing up, he had a poster of Michael Jordan in his bedroom. Right next to it he had a poster of Jesus. He considered himself a Christian, but while he was a fan of Jesus he wanted to be like Mike. He didn’t come to understand this distinction until later in his life. There are a lot of peop...

As I begin my fifth year as the pastor of Salem, I am grateful for this congregation I serve. What a great adventure! And now we continue our exciting journey. We have just approved a building project and elected a Building Committee. While that group has already begun work, we know it will take some time to put the pieces in place before we break ground. One of those pieces is a capital campaign to raise money for the project. In addition to the money we raise ourselves, Salem likely will receive gifts from our brothers and sisters around the Iowa Conference. This offering is known as a Builders Call. United Methodist Builders have been an important part of building churches all around the Iowa Annual Conference, helping new congregations buy land or build their first church facility and providing funds to help older congregations update their facilities, build new additions, and expand their ministries. Two churches are selected for the Builders Call each year: one in the sprin...

When I was preparing to start a new church, I learned that a new church is a movement, a group of people working together with passion and excitement. At some point, for that movement to continue it needs to organize. When it does and becomes an institutionalized congregation, however, the movement begins to die because the institution seeks to preserve itself. Churches in that situation, often have lengthy committee meetings that produce very little if nothing. “We met for three hours but we couldn’t decide whether to paint the fellowship hall beige or off-white. So we established a task force to study the issue.” The Sunday after our General Conference concluded, I asked the congregation if they had ever heard of a church meeting where nothing happened. People chuckled. I explained there had been a church meeting but nothing had been accomplished. Of course, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Still, it’s not much of an exaggeration. Bishop Will Willimon from North Alabama said it...

General Conference , The United Methodist Church’s top legislative body, has begun meeting in Tampa, Florida. Nearly a thousand delegates from around the world set policy and direction for the church, as well as handle other business. General Conference is the only entity that speaks officially for The United Methodist Church. As always, there are many issues discussed and voted upon such as sexuality (the subject of homosexuality has been debated at every General Conference since 1972), abortion, church membership, immigration, war and peace, financial reform, and the environment. In the midst of this, the Council of Bishops and the Commission on the General Conference are calling for peace and sharing what God expects of us in our Holy Conferencing ( Colossians 3:12-16a, 17 ). I think three issues this year have the potential truly to change The United Methodist Church. STRUCTURE Much research (the Call to Action ) has been done and it says the majority of United Methodist ...

The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. (Mark 4:26-27 NLT) Why do some people respond positively to God’s word while others do not? In the Gospels Jesus tells the parable of the sower ( Matthew 13 , Mark 4 , Luke 8 ). It’s a story about a farmer planting seed. Probably Jesus’ listeners immediately knew he was talking about teaching or preaching. Sowing was a stock metaphor. Jesus says that some seed fell on the path and birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on rocky ground. It sprouted immediately but died because of a lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns that choked the seeds. Other seed fell into good soil and grew and the harvest was a hundredfold or sixty or even thirty. A first century Galilean farmer would be very excited with a tenfold harvest, taking in ten bushels for every one bushel of seed planted. About seven bushels wou...

We are making a big transition in one of our communication practices. This week we are mailing a paper copy of the monthly newsletter for the last time. We will no longer print and mail in bulk The Forecaster . Rather, we will email it to as many people as possible. We will still print and mail a paper copy to our shut ins, of course, and to those who do not have electronic access, and we will still print and have some paper copies available at the church. We are transitioning to a new way of communicating. This is good stewardship as it is cost effective (the new postage rate just about doubles our cost of mailing), saves paper, and utilizes the technology that many if not most people already have in their homes or access to elsewhere. We are certainly not the first congregation to make this change. Many churches have already begun this practice. The Iowa Annual Conference also continues working to have good stewardship practices. The Bishop announced that the Sessions Committee (...

Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ who will transform the world. So how are we doing? I want to tell you about Deb Black and Ed Foss. Deb, our staff person for care ministries, brought Ed onto the Care Team. It started when Ed was in the hospital having major surgery. He was touched by the care he received from the visitation team who came to him and prayed with him each day. During that time, God touched Ed and opened his heart to be a part of that ministry. Deb did a wonderful job. She invited him to shadow her when she made visits in the hospital. She did the ministry and Ed watched her. Then she invited Ed to do the ministry with her. Then she went with Ed while he did the ministry. Finally, she turned him loose and now Ed (and Diane!) are ministering as part of the Care Team. And they are caring for people beyond the hospital! In assessing the state of Salem, besides the anecdotal evidence there are some benchmark statistics to which we want to pay attention. The...