Author: David A. Wofford

Serving Christ, proclaiming Resurrection, renouncing Evil.

This Old House

This Old House – a show that I love to discuss all the time! Ask my kids and they will tell you that I love to watch re-runs of This Old House on Saturday mornings! I like it partly because I like to mimic their Boston accents with Sarah, and partly because I absolutely love construction. After all, this was my first career – shortlived as it was.

The deeper, perhaps more subconscious reason I adore this PBS show is because they take deep pride and attention to restoration. They appreciate the old crafts that went into these mostly 100-plus-year-old homes. As such, they usually repair what is already brilliantly installed while updating the existing structure for safety and functionality. While they may keep a front porch, windows, or stairwells, they oftentimes update the electrical wiring, the plumbing, and the insulation. The result is a restored house that operates well for the present day and many days to come. 

We are living out a realtime, 21st Century season similar to This Old House. We may not have the Bostonian accents that delete the “r” sounds, but as a living, breathing Methodist congregation, we are intentionally working to restore the “faith once delivered” to our ancestors and our predecessors at Eatonton First Methodist Church. I just love having the opportunity to see God working to both restore His house of worship at Eatonton First Methodist Church, but I am also bought into the ministries happening now, and the possibilities emerging to help us to connect with the least, last and lost of Eatonton in 2024 and beyond! May we know who we are as Methodists, and may we work to restore and, in some places, update in ways that gives God all the glory!

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“Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.” ~Zechariah 9:12

The Older I Get

Forty years on, I have less to write.  I earnestly want to say something.  I want to have things that are important, or needed, or pertinent to living.  Maybe it’s because my age is getting the best of me.  It could be because I have two children and a rich life!  It could be because my brain is aging, thus making me less vital, less able, less relevant.  Perhaps it’s a smattering of all things above…

…wait…I’ll just go ahead and say it.  I have less to write because these last 15 years have been like nothing I could have ever expected…

…wait, wait…shifting gears a bit, can you all believe how fast things are shifting in the UMC?  I mean, WOW, in three years there will very likely be at least two more clearly defined movements of United Methodism.  I hope that on some level they will connect if only because Pan-Methodism, though honorable and right, is a weakened expression of connection…and I still believe connectionalism is something worth striving for if done with integrity (a significant delineator).  And when did Scriptural hermaneutic become a convoluted, two-way street amongst Wesleyans?  When did primacy of the Bible become optional?  I don’t understand.  Anyway, there isn’t must else to say.

…wait, wait, wait…one more shift…did you ever think that Christianity would be so passé in America?  I mean, when I was a child, my world view was surrounded by a community of Christ.  I, like my children, had no sense that there was any other way.  It seems the older I get, the wider my eyes are opened…

…and I have very little to say about any of this.  Except that I can’t imagine living without my beloved UMC…or, more importantly, Scripture and the Faith.

Nine Years On…

…It’s definitely a marathon and not a sprint.  That cliché truly holds up in my life as a minister.  On the other hand, I have come far enough along the journey of ministry to look back and realize I have traveled a good piece thus far and it didn’t seem .  There have been days of struggle, though not too many.  There have been far more days of joy and triumph, though I haven’t relished them enough.

A marathon-runner I am not.  However, I have had the audacity and the good fortune to train for a few half-marathons (full disclosure – I am not much of runner.  Never have been; never will be).  What I like about running…okay, jogging…is that it forces me out of my comfort zones.  To get up and go out there puts me into a set of circumstances that my body and my mind do not always like.  The weather is always a reality.  My mind tells me, “Stop! It’s too cold” or “Really, in this heat?”  There is always that voice in my head that says, “You’re too weak, too slow, too….” That same nagging voice of insecurity says, “Stop!” But then, just a few more steps…and a few more.

Nine years into ministry in the local church as a minister, I’ve taken enough steps on the marathon to look back, and yet, I sure hope there are many more to come.  Sure, there will be changes in the weather and I am bound to need rest along the pathway, but I’m going to keep on going.  Recently, I have been taking inventory of where I am on God’s pathway.  I am amazed at where it has taken me to this point.  Here’s to many miles ahead in His Truth and Grace; just one step at a time.

I am greatly encouraged by the many saints that have gone before me.  I have been serving in this capacity just long enough to appreciate those who have made it down the road a little further, a little bit longer, a little bit harder.  I don’t know when one becomes a veteran in ministry, but I don’t think that’s me yet.  What I do know is that I have a greater appreciation for them now than when I started to go – they made the difference.  I still love what I do and I consider it a privilege, and so I shall keep jogging onward.

“Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.—Hebrews 12:1-2.

Rules, Rules, Rules

“Rules are made to broken.”  As a child I was told that this was a bad, bad mantra.  As a result, I grew up every mindful of what the rules were.  I was likewise ever mindful of the consequence for breaking the rules.  To break the rules meant being punished by my parents or being shamed in the eye of the public.

But in a very public way, Jesus broke many rules along his journey to the Cross.  In this week’s text of Luke 13, Jesus breaks a biggie when he heals the woman on the Sabbath.  To do so carried multiple implications. Not only was he doing so on the day of rest, but Jesus was healing a woman – bringing a multi-faceted reality of scoff before the religious class of his time.  

Jesus broke the rules.  Jesus broke the rules in order to fulfill the rules.  Jesus broke with human rules to live out God’s understanding of those same rules.  In essence, Jesus gave fullness to the rules by breaking the people’s misunderstanding that had evolved over the course of thousands of years.  

Jesus takes our breath away by shining light on the rules…by breaking them…in the name of God’s unending love for all of his people.   I look forward to seeing you at Young Harris UMC this Sunday for worship at 11 a.m. as we proclaim God’s love for all and the rules that must be re-examined in our lives.