The Heath Mullikin Project

Questions I need Answers to

1. Is it more “neighborly” and patriotic to be willing to pay higher taxes or to give to charity and church?

2. Should the Catholic church be more upset with politicians who don’t agree with the churches stand on abortion or with politicians who don’t tithe?

3. Is it bad for a church when a member who doesn’t tithe, doesn’t agree with the doctrines of the church, and publicly bashes the pastor leaves the church?

4. Am I the only Wesleyan pastor who won’t be affected by tax cuts by either candidate?

5. Am I the only Wesleyan pastor who struggles with figuring out what the whole disciple making process looks like?

6. Does anyone think that the post-election analysis will be as entertaining, maddening, and repulsive as the pre-election commentary?

7. Does who you vote for in November show you’re a racist, sexist, old personist, or hair pluggist?

8. Am I the only one who is daily reminded of a Seinfeld episode from my daily life?

9. Is it bad that my son can say “Batman” and “Boston” before he said “Jesus” and “God”?

10. If creditors fell comfortable calling people at work on their cell phones, would it be okay if we called them at home?

11. Can I finally win a Fantasy Football game this weekend since I’m playing the other team that hasn’t won a game?

12. If the dog from down the street who get into my trash every night “disappeared” would I be the prime suspect?

Much love to all and have a great weekend. Thanks to everyone who made last week the most read week in my blog’s short history.

Saw this great cartoon yesterday refering to the bad call during the Broncos-Chargers game on Sunday. The ref blew the call, but took responsibility. Politics is, more often than not, placing blame on your opponent for a variety of issues. Yesterday, as news of economic woes hit, both the Democrats and Republicans quickly pointed fingers at the other. George Bush, in particular, has been blamed for a lot of things these past 8 years. The bad economy is his fault, high gas prices are his fault, catastrophic hurricanes and the govt. response to them are his fault, the Iraq War is his fault, etc. Lots of time spent placing blame. Little time spent finding solutions. That’s what I love about Jesus. The cross was His way of saying “Oops, my bad” on behalf of all us to a God who needed a scapegoat to take our place. He says,” Don’t waste your time pointing fingers. I’m right here. I’ll take the blame.” It leaves plenty of room for personal responsibility though. Wouldn’t it have been cool to hear Chargers coach Norv Turner say, “It’s our fault we couldn’t mentally recover from the ref’s mistake and stop the Broncos on any play after that.” Or to hear a presidential candidate say, “You know, every day I’ve spent on the campaing trail talking about what’s wrong in our country is a day I haven’t spent in Washington trying to solve our nation’s problems.” Can a person run for president without failing to fulfill their elected duties as a Senator, Governor, etc? It’s also easy to place blame in the church. We Wesleyans tend to hurl our blame upward toward district and denominational figures. Other times we spend hours at board meetings asking who cancelled the homecoming dinner and planned the service that went way too long instead of talking about issues that matter. And don’t even get me started on the music. Blame is always about the past. Blame doesn’t change the future. Bravery does. Bravery to move past the impulse to pass blame and instead discuss solutions to our shared problems. You can put lipstick and glasses on a ref, but….ahhh, never mind.

Wesleyan thoughts for a Rainy Tuesday

As most of you know, I grew up in the Baptist church until my Senior year of college. I made the switch because in discovered I was more Arminian in theology than Calvinist and had experienced some rough pastoral changes in my teenage years. For me, the Wesleyan church was just a better fit. Also, when you see Asbury Seminary’s life size statue of John Wesley and realize we would have seen “eye to eye” then it’s a no-brainer for me. So, after 11 years in the denomination what have I learned?

1. We are small, tight knit(geographically) denomination. Sometimes I think we feel like we are the only denomination with struggling churches, older congregations and worship wars. I will never forget my first accountability group meeting at SWU. Two upperclassman were talking about graduates and where they were serving. This was the first time I heard about districts, DS’s, etc. and I was impressed at how they knew so many people in the denomination. Many times, Baptist churches can be islands and you aren’t aware of what’s going on at other churches. In the Wesleyan church, you can pretty much find out anything about any church especially in your district. Many districts have weekly, monthly, and seasonal newsletters that keep track of pastoral changes, growing ministries, changed lives, and stats. I think we always put the microscope on ourselves and our issues and problems seem larger than life because they’re OUR problems. Truth be told, every denomination has struggling churches, incompetent and shady ministers, church “bosses”, out of tune pianos and choirs, worship tension, and pew/bench warmers.

2. It’s quite possible that in 10 years we will have the same number of churches, but different ones. I have served in three districts now(NC East, South Carolina, and Penn-Jersey) and none of them were shy about closing ineffective churches and planting new ones. I hope I am wrong and we have 5 times the number of churches we have now and all of them are healthy and making a positive difference in the lives of their community.

3. Some the people I have respected the most have been pastors and some of the people I have respected the least have been pastors.

4. Many Senior Pastors who have staff members have no training in staff relationships, did not have a positive experience when they were a staff member, or they have never been a staff member or Sr. Pastor before. The Denomination, Districts, and Universities need to be proactive in this type of training.

5. Most pastors are solo and/or bi-vocational. For many of them, this is a rut they will never get out of. For others, it is a calling to minister in those situations. For the rest, it is a period they are in while the church is growing and they anxiously await the opportunity to be full-time at the church with some part-time help.

6. Many Wesleyan teens go to Wesleyan colleges and wind up leaving the Wesleyan church and even the church period. You better believe that I will help familes with graduating seniors find them a vibrant church near whatever college they are going to whether it’s Wesleyan or not. I regret not realizing the importance of parents not only taking college visits with their students, but also college church visits.

7. Everybody thinks their youth camp is the best.

8. No matter where you hold a Wesleyan Youth Convention people will complain about travel distance and expenses. Instead of a Perry Noble throat punch, youth pastors I hear complaining will be told to sell one of their five guitars and pay for a charter bus for their whole group. Youth pastors who don’t own a guitar can sell one of their computers/laptops/Macbooks. Or they can do concessions at college football games.

9. Who was more of a community organizer: John Wesley, Jesus, or Barack Obama?

10. Lock-ins are stupid no matter what denomination you’re a part of. Am I the only one who has noticed that no secular organization does lock-ins? People have lock-ins sometimes. They’re called house parties. For many, college is a very expensive 4 year lock-in. Who was the great church leader who first said,”Guys, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s have the kids stay up all night while eating pizza.” Where did this insane idea originate? But I know the kids love them so they will probably continue.

Love to everyone.

Weekend Review

For those of you who don’t know anything about Fantasy Football, it can be a bit frustrating sometimes. This weekend I cut my tight end Tony Scheiffler of the Broncos because he is sharing time with two other guys and I signed Anthony Fasano a tight end from Miami who is becoming one of Chad Pennington’s favorite targets. Apologies for the misspelling of their names. So, Fasano gets 0 points and Tony got 18. This would have given me the win. Instead I lost by two points. It’s also maddening that every article I read said to make the same move. Oh well, better follow my gut next time.

I got this disappointing news on Saturday and needless to say I was shocked. There is not a Baptist church in the South where his songs haven’t been sung way too many times. I think “Thank You” was the song for people who found out they were doing special music when they got to church. It was the old standby. They could just wing it. Check out his site and statement here. How do we minister to people in this situation? How do we show love to them?

I also found out the Hootie and the Blowfish are taking a break. It is not supposed to be a break up, but I really regret missing their SC concert in July. The good news is they will continue to do their 4 charity concerts every year, and I’m pretty sure at least one of them is in SC. I won’t make the same mistake twice. Hootie got me through college. We had Hootie week when Fairweather Johnson was released. I had Hootie on the back of my church basketball jersey and 2 guys would yell “hootie hoo” whenever I made a three pointer(so I only got hear it a couple of times that season). I have all their CD’s and I’m looking to download some concerts from this past tour.

Clemson won Saturday. It means nothing. They should’ve crushed NC State.

The Gamecocks are now 1-2, but gave Georgia a scare.

If not for a brutally bad pass interference call against Miami to win the BCS championship several years ago, Ohio State would be ofer big games. They got dismantled by Southern Cal(USC is in Columbia, SC). They have gotten blown out in two straight BCS title games and I’m hoping people realize now that the Big Ten(though better than the ACC) is utter garbage compared to the rest of the country. Of course, I never mind seeing OSU getting blown out.

I didn’t see the blown call in the San Diego-Denver game live, but did hear Norv Turner call it “unacceptable”. Well, Norv, many people feel that your being a head coach is unacceptable as you somehow take one of the most talented teams in the NFL down the tank.

I only have one political thought for the day. People in Hollywood need to realize that every time they say something political, it turns off most of America. It’s like the elite on the coasts are completely out of touch with regular Americans. Of course, the same can be said of some well-known conservatives(many times ministers) who can’t seem to get enough of the taste of their foot. It makes me wonder if I’m looking down my nose at anybody or putting my foot in my mouth.

Have a great Monday.

The disappointment of 9-11

I got to the office late on the morning of September 11, 2001. It was around 10 am when I saw Pete Wood at the main office computer(the only one with internet). He asked me, “Did you here? It’s like World War 3. Bombs going off at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.” We were without a secretary that day so I manned the phones as people called with all sorts of questions. The internet was down so I rolled a TV into the office to watch the coverage and try to figure out what was going on. Pete, Fred Andrews, and I were all in a state of shock. When the first tower collapsed my only response was to yell, “Holy Crap!” I remember our youth meeting the next night and Austin Rampey praying earnestly for the salvation of those responsible. At that point, Osama Bin Laden was a name new to most of us. The congress sang God Bless America on the steps of the capitol. Churches were open everywhere for people to pray. Many people turned to God for answers, guidance, and peace. For a brief time the partisan bickering in Washington stopped. I wrote song about that day. I wish the chorus hadn’t been so prophetic:

Will this be different, will it be the same

When this is over will we all forget Your name

We will seek You and we will find

But when this is over will we all change our minds.

Here we are, 7 years later, and the feeling of unity brought on by the tragedy of 9-11 is long gone. I find that the divisions in Washington aren’t representative of most American communities. Most of us are struggling to make ends meet, build a life for our familes, and get along with our neighbors no matter our differences. You would never know that from watching any of the nightly news shows. From them, you would think we are rioting and fighting everyone around us. None of us appears to be overly happy with either of our presidential choices or with the performance of our elected representatives. But, none of us has the will, money, or connections to declare our candidacy to replace those who are fighting, but have forgotten who and what they’re fighting for. And therein lies the problem. The system is broken. We are promised Universal Health Care so that we would over look this. We are offered tax cuts, lower gas prices, green jobs, a secure border, and a thousand other things we will never see all to make us forget how angry we were at the system when we woke up this morning. Let me let you in on a little secret. The system isn’t the problem. The system is broken because we are broken. We are bent to preserving our self-interests. The anger we feel is really anger towards ourselves because we haven’t allowed our lives to be transformed by the power of God. The system doesn’t need to be changed, it needs to be transformed by people who are tapped into the transforming power of God. It all starts with me and you. What am I going to do today to help bring hope from the ashes of disaster? How will I allow God to transform me, my church, my community, my nation, and my world? Personally, I’d like to see the church put the government out of business. What I mean is for the church to take the lead in feeding, educating, training, and transforming people’s lives so the government can fix our roads, protect our nation, and make sure the mail, trains, and planes arrive on time. Now, that’s putting country first and change we can believe in.

September 10, 2001

Do you remember what you were doing on September 10, 2001? It was a Monday. Did I watch Monday night football? Did I take my wife out to dinner? Did we rent a movie that night? Did I have a meeting that night? George Bush was preparing for a visit with Florida school children and thinking about his first year as president. He was thinking about his domestic agenda, tax cuts, and Education reform. None of us had a clue that night when we fell asleep that everything was about to change. Americans went to bed in a world we thought was safe and awoke the next day to a new reality. What things did we take for granted? What relationships did we take for granted? If we could go back to that day what would we do differently? Has the church provided answers and direction in a world that stopped making sense? There are kids in my youth group who don’t remember life before 9-11. How do I work through the rubble and make disciples of this generation? So, hugs your kids a little tighter, hold your spouse a little closer, talk to your parents on the phone a little longer, take life a little slower, and love a little stronger. Everything may change tomorrow.