Category Archives: Pastor’s Ponderings

“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”  ~ 2 Corinthians 5:20

Friends, in my sorting to find things I packed during the move; I ran across a newsletter “Pondering” that I wrote for March 2022.  It concerned an issue that I find I need to readdress in my life.  I have gotten so ‘busy’ that I sometimes find myself rushing through or past important things.  Maybe I’m not as ‘present’ during a conversation as I should be, or perhaps I’m taking some short-cuts that shouldn’t be taken.  Anyway, I guess God wanted me to remember something important, so He put this little ‘Pondering’ back in my hands…..Don’t you just hate it when God uses your own words to point out an issue that needs change?!

I didn’t really hear her at first.  Well, I heard but I didn’t completely understand.  That happens to me sometimes on Sundays, especially after the service.  People tell me things or say things to me as I am rushing here or there.  Sometimes I’m just not as focused on them as I should be, so their words just float over my head.  There’s just too much going on…too many people needing something or saying something or calling my name.  And she…well…she is so small and so young and so soft spoken….her words….just didn’t register with me.  That is…not until her grandma translated.

I had just given her and her sister a small plastic heart.  (The kids always like to come to my office after service and see what treasures I have to share.) Grandma reminded them to say ‘thank you’ to Pastor Terri.  I heard one little voice say, ‘Thank you’ and then the other little voice said, what I thought was ‘thanks’ but she said something more that I didn’t quite hear.  I just simply responded with “you are so welcome’.  But their grandmother started to chuckle and said,  “She called you God.” “What!?”, I said.  Grandma smiled and said.  “She just said, ‘thanks, God!’” We both had a little chuckle about that, and I remarked that I had been called some pretty strange things, but this was a first!

On my way home though, it started to hit me.  She is about three or so and cute as a button.  She is happy and lively and healthy and …..she thinks I’m God! I guess it kinda makes sense to someone her age.  I mean, she only sees me on Sunday where she goes to learn about God.  And, that’s all she hears me talk about while she’s here.  I guess I can understand why her young mind might jump to that conclusion. 

My first thought was how flattered I was.  I mean…to be mistaken for God!  Then I thought about how enlightened she was (even though she didn’t realize it) to believe that God might be a woman!  But then I started to think about other things…If I am God to her, (not just representing Him but AM Him)…..well….that’s quite a responsibility!  Her little heart is so impressionable…. if I were to mess up in front of her…as God!!!!  Wow! I could really hurt her spiritual growth and her future connection with Him.  And that’s quite a big….no that’s a HUGE responsibility! 

God does these sorts of things to me every now and again.  He sort of slaps me in the face with a reality of the vocation I’m in.  It’s hard to live up to the responsibility of being a person in a pastoral leadership role.  I’m human…. I make mistakes… I say the wrong things… I forget stuff… I misread signals… I make hasty decisions… I fail!  (GASP!  I know!!!)  As a Christian, and especially as a Christian leader, my mess-ups reflect upon God.  My flaws and frailties sometimes make it look like I’m not connected to Him.   And sometimes, when I mess up… someone gets their feelings hurt, or worst, they might not get the spiritual guidance or comfort that they need.

That little voice, that little face…saying ‘thanks, God’, reminded me of the HUGE responsibility I have as Pastor and as a Christian.  She may be three (or so), but she is already forming opinions and connections.  Her little eyes are watching, her little ears are hearing and my input, casual or not, can make an imprint on her life.  In fact, anyone who has heard me describe myself as pastor and Christian, could be forming opinions about God because of my actions and responses.  That old saying, ‘you might be the only Jesus someone ever sees’ hits me a little differently since she mistook me for God.  I don’t want to mess this up!  Especially for her!  I want her to come to know the God I love and to trust Him.  I want her to trust me!

Someday, she will come to know that I am not God.  Someone will correct her… enlighten her and she will find that I make mistakes and am no more than a very HUMAN  Pastor!  But until then, I’ve got to UP my game!  I’ve got to let God shine through all that I say or do…especially around her!

So, if I seem a little ‘different’ to you….especially if I am around a certain little sweetheart, just know that I am trying my best to live up to my heritage and imitate my Father.  I’m trying to love like He does and forgive like He does and be the kind of person that SHE expects (and He hopes) that I will be. And really, that’s not a bad thing is it…to try to emulate God?  To live (especially in front of her) as if I were Him with mercy and grace and love and forgiveness.  Yeah, that can be a pretty tall order.  But for her….yea for her….I’m gonna try.

“Most adults I know aren’t looking for a religion that answers all of their questions, but rather a community of faith in which they feel safe to ask them.” ~ Rachel Held Evans

I love this quote! And I really love that this church community is EXACTLY the kind of place she is talking about. We ARE a safe place. For everyone … in every phase of their faith-walk.

Some of you have been studying the Bible for decades and have some strong theological opinions. Some of you have never really ‘chewed’ on the scripture and just enjoy the comfortableness of it. Some of you are new to your faith and haven’t really developed a deep theology yet.

Here at Claybanks, you can feel comfortable enough and safe enough to explore. There are NO dumb questions. And here….. you can ask! BUT, please understand, sometimes we won’t have the answer. Or sometimes, the answer may be…..’you just have to have faith.’  That answer might feel a little incomplete, a little unsatisfying.

As a pastor, I often get asked some really hard questions (usually in times of deep grief or tragedy). I am expected to know WHY. This is usually a question that I have an unfulfilling answer for. But….I do know and can share that God loves us and is with us through whatever we are enduring. And I trust Him and lean on Him and will pray that you will also feel His presence in your time of pain. I just don’t always know the answer to your ‘WHY’ question. I ask Him that myself all the time.

Sometimes folks ask me a theological question that I can’t answer. I used to really dread this! I have studied the Bible, I continue to study the Bible, but I am not a theologian or a Biblical scholar. I don’t always know the answer to the question you have. But….we can look it up together… we can read and study and pray together for an answer! So ask away! Let’s BOTH of us learn!

Pastors and church people DON’T always know all the answers. But we will try to figure them out. We have questions of our own, too. The point is, whether you are a church leader, a faithful churchgoer, a seeker, or an agnostic…. feeling safe about asking and looking for answers is part of our faith walk. We humans want to know why, how, who. We want to know!

As a church body, we have to keep ourselves open to receive all questions. We have to welcome those questions as what they are…..people seeking to deepen their relationship with God. And folks, THAT is what church is intended to be…a place where those relationships are nurtured and can grow and thrive. Sometimes we fertilize that growth with Biblical answers. Sometimes we water it with our open hearts and hugs. Being a place where people feel ‘safe’ to explore and grow their faith is what we are called to be. And I think we are nailing it! We just have to get the word out a little bit more. People need to know that we are here and that we have room in our sanctuary and in our church family for those who are seeking…. for those who need comfort… for those who want a relationship with God. We have room for you AND for those questions. It is safe to ask them here!

by Pastor Terri Cummins

“Faith and Fear both demand you believe in something you cannot see. You choose!”

I recently attended an online training titled “Dare to Dream.” The facilitator asked us to really look at our church with honest eyes and then do some visioning. Where do you see strengths in your church, where do you see cracks and failures? Then she asked us to do some visioning….. Where/how can we build on our strengths and repair the cracks? And then, she asked us to do something unique. She said, “Imagine that you do this whole vision thing, and it takes off and it’s a raging success. And then, imagine that you’re standing in the future looking back – Look at how you partnered with God before your dream. Describe the growth in your partnership with God. What amplified your partnership? What will you see?

This made me realize something. As I did my visioning…as I looked at where we are (as much as I know at this early stage of my re-ministry with Claybanks), I realized that I was seeing where I wanted us to be….and where YOU have been telling me you would like to be. Most of you have indicated that you are content where we are, except you would like to have a few more folks who are willing and able to do some of the work of the church. Some of you have indicated that you miss the children and would like to see a few families with children worshiping here. But the majority of you are content and happy with the status quo.

So, when I attended this training and worked along with the others, and especially during the time of visioning….I struggled. How can we fulfill Jesus’s instruction and call if we just continue our status quo? Shouldn’t we be doing more to reach up and out? And then, when I tried to answer her question of how we partnered with God….I realized that my dream for Claybanks and your dreams for Claybanks may not necessarily be where God would like us to be. He has blessed us with lots of gifts and strengths that we aren’t fully using. We have dreams….but they’re not big enough…..they’re not Jesus sized dreams!

Does that scare you? It does me! Jesus seized dreams!!!! I love our little family church. I love how we interact with and care for each other. I even love the status quo. But I believe that Jesus wants us to do more! I believe that He wants us to open up to “possibilities” and He wants us to reach out to others with purpose and vision! He wants us to share ourselves and our love of Him!

I promise you, I don’t plan to try to change everything tomorrow, and I won’t try to run away with our church. Lol. But, I will continue my prayers over this. I will, in the coming months, share with you all some of the instructions I received at this training. I hope you will hear it and pray about it too. We need to figure this out together. But we also need to….together….think, pray, vision, work…toward a Jesus sized commitment and path forward. I’m excited! I’m terrified! I’m committed. We can DO this!

By Pastor Terri Cummins

I remember our leave-taking. Almost a decade ago. I was excited to be going to a new appointment and back to only one church. But I was so very sad to leave you. Claybanks UMC folks all have a very special place in my heart. Now, I thank God, the Bishop, and the Cabinet for bringing me back! I feel like Jack Nicolson in the movie The Shining….I’m baaaaccck!!!!!!   

Anyway, I’m glad to be back among you. Some of you may not know me, there are some new faces, and some of you don’t remember things about me, so I’ve been asked to fill you in. There’s a lot to say, but I think I’ll just tell you about my beginning……….. I found my faith a little late in life. I was in my mid-thirties when my children started asking questions about God that I couldn’t answer. So, I began to ‘take’ them to Sunday school, but I didn’t go in with them. My home church, Crestwood UMC, had Sunday school after their service so I would get them there and when I saw folks coming out I would send my children in.

They usually would get there in time for Kool-Aid and cookies and then Sunday school was after. I would take my Sunday newspaper and a cup of coffee and go down the street to a park and sit in my car and read my paper and enjoy some quiet time for an hour and then go back and pick my children up. One Sunday, the folks didn’t come out on time….the minutes ticked by and finally I got out of my car and peeked into the window to see what was going on. And SOMEONE SAW ME! She saw me and insisted that I come in! She said that church was just starting and we hadn’t missed much! WHAT?!  Just starting!?  Seems, that I had forgotten about the time change! OOPS.

The way the people treated my children, and the way my children walked around in the church with confidence and belonging, impressed me. I began to go inside with them on a regular basis, and we began to go in time for worship. God caused a lot of things to happen for me in the next couple of years, and one day, as I sat in the sanctuary, I realized that I was a believer. I can still feel the awe of that realization as I sat there, understanding that I was His!

My call started soon after, but I kept ignoring it until after my children were grown. I was a single parent and needed to raise them. Plus, I was sure that I was not ‘fit’ to be a pastor. I didn’t know enough, I hadn’t been raised in the church. But God calls who He calls and in 2010, following several careers including those as a Church Administrative Assistant and as a 911 Dispatcher, I finally said ‘yes’ to the persistent call I had been hearing to go into ministry. This decision turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I finally knew what it felt like to be EXCITED to go to work! And I shouldn’t have worried about my lack of knowledge because when I finally decided to say ‘yes,’ God filled me so completely that I was able to lead with confidence, even if I had to ‘look things up’ once in a while.

I think it is because of my late-blooming faith, that I carry such a deep passion for sharing my faith with folks who don’t know Him. You see, I can still remember what it feels like to not know Him. It is my mission in life, even in retirement, to share Christ and His Good News with EVERYONE! Everyone must at least have the opportunity to Know Him! No matter who you are, what you’ve done, or what you know. Everyone is a much-loved child of God and needs to hear about their Father and the Salvation purchased for them by Christ!

So now I have been given the opportunity to come back, part-time, and follow the call God is still sending me. I am so excited and feel so blessed that He has chosen me to partner with the good people of Claybanks UMC as we walk the faith walk together. We were a great team together once. I know that we’ll rock it again!

 Pastor Terri

This being my last Pastor’s Ponderings for the Claybanks Good News Letter, I want to share with you my joy in going into full retirement and my sadness with leaving you, the Claybanks United Methodist Church Family.

Just ten short years ago this past April, District Superintendent Bill Holloway introduced us to Claybanks United Methodist Church through the SPRC interview process for appointment to Claybanks United Methodist Church to be served in semiretirement.

From that initial Meet and Greet, Reba and I have been blessed for so many years being a part of the Claybanks Family. Claybanks UMC has made it such a joy to be a part of its ministry that Reba and I remained much beyond our planned three or four years. Over the years we have celebrated together, worshiped together, been in mission together, mourned together, and did the work that Jesus has asked us to do as his disciples together.

When we arrived ten years ago, you provided an interim lodging for us at the Munson house. It was a blessing in that we could not find appropriate housing during that brief time of looking from April until July when our appointment began. What a beautiful place to spend in Claybanks that first year. After living there for one year, we were able to secure a home in Pentwater, our desired retirement community, which has allowed us to establish ourselves in a place that we have grown to love and are continually expanding our role in the community.

We plan to be continually engaged in the Pentwater community and possibly travel just a little bit more as we are still physically able to do so. I plan to assist Pastor Vaughn at Centenary United Methodist Church as I hear God’s calling to be in ministry in the Pentwater Community.

It was a joy for Reba and me to hear that Pastor Terri would be your new pastor.. We value the long-established connection that Terri and Claybanks United Methodist Church have established over many years. It is our prayer that Claybanks United Methodist Church will continue to be in ministry in serving the Claybanks community as it has in so many ways in its history.

The Claybanks Church Family has loved and blessed us, and we are forever grateful to have been part of your church family during these past years. Thank you and may God bless each one of you.

Gary