Dear Friends,

         It’s the day after Labor Day as I write these words and the pulse of life in the Body of Christ is beginning to resume its usual frenetic pace for most of us, including my wife who teaches at a parochial school. Last week we also witnessed all the hoopla and excitement around the Obama-Biden slate, while this week unveils for our nation the beginnings of the McCain-Palin ticket.  All this against the backdrop of some pretty significant issues we need to address as a people.

In this month’s words, I invite you to help set a respectful tone in your churches as the election season “heats up”. This election, like so many, tends to create and incite great passion and energy. People can allow differences to become divisions. Others will draw “lines in the sand” in all manner of settings and for all sorts of issues. It is crucial that we all honor each other and do what we can to encourage thoughtful, faithful debate.

We can model for family and friends how to disagree without being disagreeable. People of faith often see the world in widely divergent ways… they often see “the answer” in a prescriptive way. Matters about which we care deeply can sometimes lead us to say certain things that can divide, wound and damage the other… and the entire community of faith.

Thus, as this 2008 Election draws closer, I encourage us, as leaders in our churches and in our communities, to model well a spirit of charity with each other… and others. Let us speak with as much humility as clarity… with as much to learn from others as we have to share. Lastly, I remind you that while you can speak to issues from the point-of-view of your faith, you can not endorse a candidate or issue without risking the loss of the church’s tax-exempt status. And the days when we can act as if we are immune from civil authority are long-gone (if they were ever real).

Thank you for your ministry. I trust that each of you were able to have at least some time off this summer… or at least some on the near-horizon. Take the issues we confront as a people seriously. Use the prism of your faith. But also be careful with the ways in which you bear witness so that it really is a witness… and not a witness to raw power. As always, I invite your feedback and reflections. May Christ’s spirit continue to empower you and all you love in these days of change.

Shalom,

Tom Macaulay
District Superintendent