The Chopping Block

“When I went to seminary at Nazarene Seminary, and I began to understand Wesley's theology of love, and his heart for both holiness and love. So, God is described as holy love. Like if there's one definition of God that I think captures who God is, it's holy love. Wesleyan theology, I think, teaches that, again, with other theologies, but Wesleyan theology particularly teaches that there is a transformation that love can accomplish in individuals, in families, in churches.”

“Our particular branch of Methodism really was started with justice in mind, which I really appreciate. So, we branched off of the Methodist Church that was pro-slavery. We were anti-slavery, so we said we believe that all people should be free. And in particular, with that, well, in conjunction with that, we were pro-women in ministry from the beginning. The first woman voted in a Wesleyan Church in New York, I think, is one of our piece of history there.”

“Wesley taught it much more as a process, and I believe that is way more biblical. It's way more Jesus saves me, he transforms me, and somewhere along the line, I just surrender completely to him. And then, he has freedom to work in every corner of my life. That doesn't mean I don't sin again, that doesn't mean I don't have struggles again, that doesn't mean I don't need accountability and discipline. So in that sense, my entire life is open to his sanctification. So that's how I interpret that. I'm giving my entire life to his sanctifying work rather than some sort of a finished product.”

“One of the things that really has happened in our denomination is a deep entrenchment of legalism. So when I moved to Lawrence in 1987, there was a group of people who, I say, were the victims of legalism, not the perpetrators. All the perpetrators had either died or moved away. And these folks were living in fear. They were worried about offending God at every turn. They had a hard time laughing and enjoying life because they were so committed to this holiness thing.”

“One of the big issues is the building, is that, it even took me a while to figure that out, is that we don't own the buildings. From a revitalization team, let me tell you the importance of when your local congregation doesn't own the building. Is, as you know, all churches only have a certain lifespan. And when they close and don't have that ability anymore, we can come in and actually rebirth that resource, or we can sell that resource. The money only goes to birthing new churches.”

“One fun fact. I think the last letter that Wesley wrote, he wrote it from his deathbed, he wrote to William Wilberforce to encourage him to continue on the fight in parliament.”

“Scripture has to be read through what Wesley called the Wesley Quadrilateral. So, right, scripture, so I think of it as a baseball diamond. Home base is where you start, and home base is where you end. And you don't really get credit for being stuck on second base, or third base or first base, right? So home base is scripture, first base is in different order here for different people, but mostly it's tradition, reason and experience.”

“A seminary professor said, you know, in Nazarene Seminary said, you know, us Nazarenes and Wesleyans, we were holy. We didn't go to movie theaters, so God rewarded us by creating VCRs. You know, so it was a beautiful thing. And so it was his way of saying legalism is really stupid, you know.”

“I was just at a meeting a couple weeks ago in India, Indianapolis, not India, Indiana. And there was, there is a, at our general conference next year, there's a what we call memorial to reduce, that they went through and said, what can we call out of here? And this will pass, I'm sure. We're going to take a bunch of those pages out. Which again is a desire and a recognition that if we're going to be a movement, there has to be some things we do that are different.”

“Most of us come to Manhattan, Kansas with the intention of getting educated or being stationed at Fort Riley and then moving on. But some of us are stayers. That was us. We get to have a big impact in the world by investing in the goers. So whether you're a stayer or a goer, make the most of your time in Manhattan, Kansas and be a blessing to the rest of the world.”

“My wife and I, Marist and I, have lived in Manhattan since 99 So we're here five years as students, two years with the Navigators, then 12 years on staff at New Hope Church, and then the last year plus at Tallgrass Church. And over all of those years, numbers of people that we've gotten to meet, we've said hello to, and then we've turned around and said goodbye to, just time and time and time again in Manhattan, Kansas.”

“So several months ago, my good friend Steve Thorpe, you know, who was stationed here for a year and a half, and then they moved to Hawaii two years ago, he texted me a photo of him and some friends at the beach and said, here's our beach church. And in jest, I texted back, I said, hey, do you ever fly out a guest speaker? And he replied and said, actually, Rebecca would like to fly you out for my Father's Day gift on Memorial Day weekend. So you track that. I'm flying out as Steve's Father's Day gift so he can hang out Memorial Day weekend with a buddy, which gets to be me.”

“in fact, they have just recently founded a new non-profit called Open Window Adoption. And their heart and vision is that no family would be prevented from adopting because of money issues. And so they hope to just be taking applications soon and then begin helping offset fund the cost of adoption.”

“And so that we learned that going to Africa was no longer going to be an option, at least not to the orphanage we had planned to go to. We had actually traveled there right before we came here, right before we moved here. So it was hard for us, or hard for me for sure, because we had made a connection with the children there and the staff, and we had told them all that we would be back soon, and that we were looking forward to just helping them grow and learn and learn about Christ and be there to support them.”

“And even though we've traveled all over the world and been blessed by being in the military, to be able to do that and see some amazing sites and amazing places, one of the most amazing things that we found was the community in Manhattan. And so of all the places in the world we've been, we were even surprised to find out that where we really wanted to go to was Manhattan, to be able to reconnect with people and friends we've made there and just put down roots and grow our kids and start the next chapter of our life.”

“As I prepare to transition out of the Army, the Army has been my identity for 20 years now. And so, just, I think there's anxiety, and as you kind of turn over a new leaf or any sort of big chapter in your life, so just praying that we do it well, that I finish out well with my time here, and then we're able to transition and figure out what it is we're going to do in the next phase of life.”

“So those of us who stay in Manhattan, Kansas, for any length of time, to the stayers, hey, lean into relationships. Let people know. So when they come here, and you find out they're a student or a soldier, move towards them. They desire relationships. Help them get plugged in, connected quickly. Invest in the people that are passing through. There are great works to walk in with these people coming through Manhattan, Kansas. Leave people better than you found them, and let your own life be enriched by them.”

“Yeah, we don't want to just have pooled ignorance, which can happen, and we don't want two sides of the discussion throwing bombs at each other. We want to actually think deeply together. So the scriptures call us in Romans 12 to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.”

“The biggest thing that I took away from the group is a deeper understanding for people's hearts and where they're at in their walk with Christ. And the fact that we're all wrestling with wanting to come to the deeper understanding of what truth is.”

“Did we all come to the same conclusions at the end of our discussion? No, actually. Was that okay? Yeah. It was enriching.”

“The doctrine of hell has always been part of Christian theology. Unfortunately, hell has a bit of a checkered past. From the apocalypse of Peter's gruesome depictions of women hanging over boiling mire to skin-curling images of hell in Dante's Inferno, to Jonathan Edwards' blistering sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, to 20th century Bible Belt preachers barking with anger about the wrath to come. Hell has been used, some would say abused, to scare people into obedience or increase their tithe.”

“It seems like there's kind of a trend in the church, I don't know, at least in some elements of the church, where we don't actually encourage thinking deeply. It can be even kind of discouraged. There's kind of a rise in kind of this anti-intellectual view of the faith. So we want to reclaim a view of thinking deeply in the scriptures and about things that matter.”

“Yeah, I've noticed sometimes, especially when there's a new believer or a young believer, they start asking questions that get to more theologically deep waters. Sometimes people shut those questions down. Either intentionally or not. Yeah, those questions just continue to linger.”

“First one is, you have to be young or in college. Yeah, I think there's, college students are more available than those who are married with kids and with high demanding jobs. So maybe it's a little easier to go after, but it's definitely not just for college students. So college students may have a little bit more time, may even be able to disciple more people at the same time. But if you've got a lot of young kids at home, if you're in a job, and you can only engage with maybe one person over a number of years, great. At the end of the day, it's not about production primarily, but about faithfulness and moving forward in relationship.”

“Number two, you don't have time. But we all have the same amount of time, right? No matter where you live, no matter what culture you live in, no matter how many kids you have, you have the same amount of time. So that's a little bit of a tongue in cheek answer, but it's profound as well. It all comes down to how we prioritize and allocate our time.”

“You do have to have been discipled to be able to disciple someone else. That's wrong. That's the misconception. If it was true that you have to have been discipled to disciple and the discipleship is just getting back into the church, then we would all sit back and no one would be discipling anyone. Most of us would have an excuse.”

“You have to wait until someone asks you to disciple them. It can be a real encouragement to someone else if you were to take the initiative. At the end of the day, that's what we have to offer, is the initiative. Oftentimes, that's what God's love even says. It takes the initiative, it takes a little extra risk to initiate with someone. We love because He's loved us first, so we've already been initiated with because of Christ's love for us. So the burden's on us to initiate. And when you initiate, even if someone's not available or they say no, that's fine. It's still success, because you've taken a step, and you've risked.”

“So I remember my first discipling relationship where I asked someone if they wanted to meet with me. I drugged my feet for months and months and months. I was afraid. I was scared that it was gonna be awkward, that I wouldn't know what to do. And once I finally asked, his name was Kyle, if he wanted to meet with me, it was a little awkward even in that moment, but it wasn't too bad. He said yes. And so I remember our first meeting when we started meeting. It was slightly awkward. I told him, I'm not quite sure what to do. And he said, me neither. And it was a little awkward. And I think I said, this is a little awkward. And he said, not too bad. And so we pushed through it.”

“Number nine, you have to meet in a coffee shop. Misconception, we're not even in a coffee shop right now. Lizzie shared a couple weeks ago when we preached on this, when we talked about this, she shared how her first disciple-making experience was going grocery shopping, I think she said, and that that was great. Great conversations happened as it went. That's awesome. A lot of folks go for a walk or a run.”

“And a lot of times, it's people like to follow those who are leading with a limp. And so if you try to come across, if you have it all together, that's really hard to follow, and it's off-putting. So let people know your weaknesses and express that you need help too, and lead with a limp.”

“Number 12 is, it's gonna be easy, and you'll be really successful. Unfortunately, this is not a foolproof program you're taking someone through. You're engaging in real relationships in real time with heart-level stuff. Sometimes people will walk away like nothing ever happened after meeting with you. Other times, they'll turn around and blame you for ill in their life. Some even will eventually walk away from Christ, and that can be very difficult. So one thing that might be helpful here is to remember to look for micro movement.”

“Number 13, you gotta do this alone. No, that is a misconception. So, one thing that can, I think, trip people up here is the, I think, very Western American idea that we have to be hyperly private. We wanna keep the circle with things as small as possible, but there will be times when you need help. A lot of traction can be made in that one-on-one discipleship relationship, but everyone needs a team around them.”

“The more neighbors who know one another by name, the fewer crimes a neighborhood as a whole will suffer. A child born in a state whose residents volunteer, vote and spend time with friends is less likely to be born underway, less likely to drop out of school, and less likely to kill or be killed than the same child. No rich or poor born in another state whose residents do not.”

“Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, the story of success, he says this, he tells the story of the remarkably healthy people of Roseto, Pennsylvania. So researcher and physician Stuart Wolfe discovered Roseto held a medical mystery. Even though the residents received 41% of their calories from fat, they smoked heavily, and they struggled with obesity. Hardly anyone had heart disease. Furthermore, said Wolfe, there was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime.”

“I did a little searching on nextdoor.com, which is a great resource, you can check it out, and found that we have just over 1,400 households in our neighborhood, south of points. So 1,400 households, you know, moms and dads and kids and just whatever those households are, 1,400 of them. As I did some research into one of the neighborhoods Jesus lived in, one of the towns he lived in, Capernaum had about 1,500 people total during Jesus' day.”

“Some of y'all are going to get those summer passes. My skin can't take that. So I come to Twilight Swim. That's when our family comes, 6 to 8 p.m. on weeknights. I think Saturdays as well. Three bucks for the adults, two bucks for the kids. Cheap way to have a lot of fun, get the right amount of sun, right amount of pool.”

“Hey, here we are at Sojourner Truth Park, a little-known park here in Manhattan, Kansas. So if some of the other parks are full or busy, come on out here or just come on out here. There's plenty of picnic tables way over there, playground right here. So I didn't discover this until I lived in Manhattan for 18 years. And so here it is, Sojourner Truth Park.”

“It's always pretty windy up here. There was one time we came up with my oldest son, Benjamin. My hat flew off and he flipped out. I'll always remember that. But they love coming up here, we love coming up here. Oftentimes, I'll just sit on that rock and look out and think, pray.”

“We wanted to highlight quickly the Nothing Festival, June 1 and 2, I believe. You know, when all the college kids go home, and we just hang out and do basically nothing. So, I mean, it's pretty much, it's an event, some call it a non-event, where we just do nothing. Find it on Facebook, and maybe you'll find us out here doing nothing.”