In my time off this weekend, we went to the Mint Museum in Charlotte. It was there I came across a piece of art made from bread ties. It reminded me of my love for pop art, found object, and even some of Dada, because it uses the things we see each day and lifts […]
(An older version of this post first appeared on my Facebook – facebook.com/j.lemastersmith on March 2, 2021) The combination of my current reading, my current experiences, and the articles talking about the pandemic impact on rural healthcare is weighing on me today. Rural healthcare systems are already strained and many communities have lost hospitals and […]
As someone who loves to hike, no matter the season, the American Beech tree is a welcome site among the brown and grey winter woods. The American Beech trees leaves die like all deciduous trees, but they do not drop their leaves, instead the leaves turn a off-white paper color and stay usually until new […]
This post originally appeared on my Facebook (Facebook.com/j.lemastersmith on February 14, 2023). Two questions that regularly come up are: 1) Do we have to vote? 2) Do we have to have speakers from both sides come? Short answer: no. Long answer: No one is required to vote. Voting is only required if you are strongly […]
As we keep going down the rabbit trail of disaffiliation questions, another question came to me about welcome. Can we (United Methodists) deny people access to worship? The answer is NO. Yet historically we have, based on race, color, national origin, economic status, relation/connection to community, marital status, and many other reasons. We have done […]
One thing we can do to help alleviate church “growth” stress in rural churches is to remind them that there’s more than one way to get home from here. I regularly take different routes to get to my destinations. I’ve been at my churches just over six months and I’ve learned a dozen different ways […]
(This post originally appeared on my Facebook – facebook.com/j.lemastersmith on January 10, 2023, all reference are from the UM Book of Discipline 2016). We all know The United Methodist Church is dealing with some significant issues right now. Yet, there is a great deal of misinformation going around, preying on the reality that we don’t […]
One thing that continues to be an issue in the church responding to rural issues and creating resources for rural communities is the conflating of rural and agricultural. Yes, quite a few people in rural communities are involved in agriculture directly or indirectly. Essentially, unless we are only hunter/gatherers, we are all indirectly involved with […]
I’ve been thinking about worship in the rural church lately(since I preach weekly, of course, but also because of a couple projects I’m working on). Worship is one the strangest zones to inhabit. The disagreements over music, sermons, the color of the bulletin, the order of worship, and everything else all flair from time to […]
Today (November 8th) is my birthday. And today, an article from Christian Century found me. It is an article about Heaven, and the need for heaven to be real. I’ll link it here. And Quote the last two paragraphs: “Sometimes I wonder if the church’s witness is failing because we don’t know how to translate […]
Jonathan LeMaster-Smith 