What time does worship begin?

As an ongoing struggle to combat the enslavement many American are in to the power of the almighty clock, worship is a protest against this constant master. Why?

Because no matter what local church you are at, no matter what time is noted above the "attempt at humor but often highly inappropriate and offensive" sign outside your church building (can we get rid of this please!), worship does not begin at 11am.

Worship began eons ago and we just happen to join in that ongoing worship at 11am on Sunday.

If we were to meet at the river at 11am and jump in for a swim, our actions did not "start" the flow of the river. Rather the river has been there long before and will be there long after our actions.

We just join into the flow of it for a time.

Spiritual Entrepreneurship and new churches

Back in 2009 I wrote a bit about Spiritual Entrepreneurship as a concept that I encountered at a conference I was at.

I am not sure what it means to be a spiritual entrepreneur but at the heart of the matter is one who is willing to risk.

Around this time of year, ministers in the UMC are on a bit of an edge as there is a chance that different ministers might be moved to different churches. This creates a number of distractions, which I have come to welcome as best as I can.

For a number of reasons that I do not understand where they all come from, I am commonly asked if I want to start my own church. Words like, entrepreneurial, young, spirited, motivated and creative are used to butter up the person and get them thinking about starting a new church. This is something I have never been interested in at all. The church has a lot of communities to tend to much less ditch the old in order to start a new one just because that is where the new tract homes are being built.

I know that to start a church takes a lot of drive and motivation and grit, but to be honest I do not have those attributes when it comes to starting a new church. I many ways I feel starting new church would be easier than to revitalize an existing church and that is often overlooked.

The UMC is able to move those who are are spiritual entrepreneurials to where ever needed - but it seems those people are asked to start new churches rather than work to revitalize the established communities. What would it look like to move leaders who are willing to risk to established churches? What would it look like to infuse a stale church community with the spiritual entrepreneurship of a leader?

Ultimately what I pray for is that in our efforts to be creative in ministry and start new churches or new models of ministry, I hope that we are not boxed into thinking that spiritual entrepreneurs are best used in non-traditional ways.

Because sometimes (perhaps many times) they are not.

Mormons are Christians, Romney is Mormon; Therefore Romney is Christian that does not care about the very poor

Just like Jesus said.