Our Pastor: Rev. Doyle Burbank-Williams

Rev. Doyle Burbank-Williams became the lead pastor of new Visions Community United Methodist Church in July of 2017.  An ordained elder and full member of the Great Plains Annual Conference, Doyle has served United Methodist churches for over 30 years.
An artist by nature and training, Doyle’s artwork has been displayed throughout the Midwest. Most recently, Doyle created 2 of the hearts for the the Nebraska by Heart public art project which celebrated Nebraska’s 150th anniversary of statehood. Doyle works in acrylics, pastels, and watercolor and considers art to be his primary spiritual discipline.
These are challenging times for any church. Doyle believes that these are times that demand all of our creativity, compassion, and imagination. As we follow Christ in these days, new forms are being explored in places where the Spirit dares to inhabit. It is up to us to be bold enough to take part in that recreation!
Doyle can be reached at rev.doyle@newvisionsumc.org

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Life Notes

Every week Doyle write some thoughts framing the following Sunday's worship. Our Life Groups use these notes as a conversation starter each each. Many of our members and friends use them for their personal reflection and devotions.

LIFE Group Encouragement and Flow
United Methodist. Really. Week 3
July 28, 2019



Beginning in Silence: Invite each other into a quiet time. Let your hearts and minds be calm in the silence. Take a moment to invite the Spirit into your being. Take a breath to feed the cells of your body, and exhale all the things your body is done with.

How is it with your soul?
Still in silence, examine the state of your soul: is it contented? Discomforted? Hungry (and what for)? Has this changed from yesterday or last week? What does your soul need today?

The Leader May Share a Brief Centering Prayer     



Acts 11:27-30 
About that time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, Agabus, stood up and, inspired by the Spirit, predicted that a severe famine would overtake the entire Roman world. (This occurred during Claudius’ rule.) The disciples decided they would send support to the brothers and sisters in Judea, with everyone contributing to this ministry according to each person’s abundance. They sent Barnabas and Saul to take this gift to the elders.

United Methodist Membership Vows:

• As members of Christ’s universal church, will you be loyal to Christ through The United Methodist Church and do all in their power to strengthen its ministries?
  
• As members of this congregation, will you faithfully participate in its ministries by their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service, and their witness?
  

I love food. Itallian food. French food. Greek food. Thai, Viet Namese, Cantonese, Korean. Lately I’ve discovered Balkan cooking. Then there’s Agentinian, Chilean, and just about every variation of Mexican you can think of. And the unique thing about these foods is that they are unique. I started by stating that I love food, but you cannot jumble all these types of cooking together in one huge pot and expect to come out with anything tasty. Each style of cooking has its own flavor profile, its own characteristic ingredients, its own method of cooking. While the inspire and adapt to each other, it is the riotous variety available that makes each food and style such a treasure.
The media and popular culture seem to think that there is one kind of Christianity, some kind of pervasive, agreed upon, unvarying and unwavering form of church called “Christian.” But the truth is, there is not and there never has been. Even in the Book of Acts, we see instances of this church and that disagreeing with the others. And like food, I believe that variety is a good thing, indeed. Humanity is varied and diverse and our spiritual and faith expressions reflect that.
I have been United Methodist my whole life, and continue to choose to be as an adult. I do not know what will come in the near future but by and large I am proud of the flavor that United Methodism has given to christianity in the world. One of the things we do really well is disaster relief. The United methodist Committee on Relief is often one of the first groups to arrive after a disaster and more often than not they stick around to keep helping and there long after other organizations have pulled out. We foster universities and schools and hospitals. Despite our in-fighting, we do a lot of good in the world. We do a lot more good together than we could on our own.
Theologically, we descendants of John Wesley talk about social faith as well as personal fatih, about prevenient grace (the grace that comes before we even know its working in our lives or the world), and sanctifying grace (the grace that works in us our entire lives to help us grow into Christlikeness). All Christian churches are not the same and these are a few of the flavors that United Methodism brings to the party.
This week’s final two membership vows ask for a commitment to this particular expression of Christianity. It is not that we believe that we have all the answers, but that for all our foibles we still have some worth contributing to the world. The first asks for loyalty, an attribute that doesn’t get much conversation these days.The second lays out particular ways that loyalty may be lived out. 
We started this short by admitting that most of us recite these vows without much thought or attention. But as aspirational pieces, they call us to a particular way of living out our faith in the world, and I believe those aspirations will continue whatever form the denomination takes in the coming years.

    How does it make life different to be connected to a group? When is it important to stand together? HowChristianity changed when we do it together? How would your life be different as you lived into these vows? 

In The New Visions Community, 
we seek to strengthen and encourage one another through LIFE* groups; 
How is God inviting us to live out the radical compassion of God’s kin_dom?