After a wonderful, busy, fantastic summer, I am slowly getting back into a fall routine.  AnnaSophia is off to college, Cooper and Spencer are back in school and I am trying to step back into the comfortable rhythm that September brings. Habits, rhythms, familiar routines…all these nourish our spirits.How about you?  Are you getting into your fall routine?  I invite you to take a moment and reflect on your spiritual journey...where are you right now?  How is your walk with God?  Does your fall routine include weekly worship with your church family?  Do you experience the presence and power of God each day? Are you faithful to pray?  Have you established a time each day to ponder the Word of God?  Are you steady in your service to our community, the poor, the oppressed, those who have lost their way?

As United Methodists we have three short phrases which can help us stay on course: do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. These are paraphrases of John Wesley’s General Rules. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, led a spiritual renewal movement in England in the 1700’s.

The last two weeks in worship have been wonderful.  We received four new people into membership on April 20: Dianne Hacker, Dale and Jan Krehbiel and Tom Krehbiel. Last Sunday, we celebrated the lives of TWELVE new babies born in the last year who are a welcome part of our congregation! 

Last Sunday, we also welcomed the Springfield Christian School Praise Band into our worship and were touched by their talent. And both DAUMC Children’s Choirs sang. Cute!

How blessed we are! I hope you are giving thanks to God daily for the life and love of this community of faith. I certainly do!

While we have been celebrating, elected leaders from all over the country have gathered in Fort Worth, Texas to discuss matters of importance to the United Methodist denomination.  Nearly 1000 United Methodists met to worship together, discuss our official stand on social issues and determine a budget for our denomination's work in the world.  They began meeting on April 23 and conclude on Friday, May 2.  Here’s one piece of news that will pique your interest: a new Hymnal committee has been approved and will be presented a new hymnal to the General Conference in 2012. Do you remember the hubbub surrounding the current hymnal’s proposed adoption? Twenty years later we’re going to do it again! What will the conversation be this time around?

Last week during Sunday School, I watched the middle school girls doodle while we did our Bible Study. I get that. I have always been a doodler. At meetings, I find myself doodling in the margins. As a young woman listening to lectures in school, I doodled. It kept my hands busy and my mind in a creative state. How about you? Are you a doodler?

I recently ran across an old sheet of paper from my 7th grade year. I had doodled it from top to bottom with one word: “Why?” I remember being plagued by this question: Why was I here? Why was I a Christian? Why do people wage war? Why is there poverty? Why did God create mosquitoes? I am still attracted to the Why Questions, but I have discovered that in the realm of faith, “why” is not all that helpful.

And yet, in the midst of life’s storms, it is frequently the first question that pops to mind. Why is God letting this happen to me? Why this disease? Why now? Why doesn’t God stop this? And most heart-wrenching and unanswerable, “Why, when I have loved God so much, is God not protecting me/healing me/saving me (or someone I love) from this pain?” “Why, God?”

This story about prayer is a legend about the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic sect of Jews.

When the Baal Shem Tov realized that he was dying, he called his followers together. “During my lifetime I have acted as intermediary for you. Now you must do this for yourselves. You know the place in the forest where I call to God. Go there to the same place and light a fire as I have instructed you. Then say the prayer I have taught you. If you do all this, God will come.”

The first generation did exactly as he had said, and God came. But the next forgot exactly how they were to light the fire. Nevertheless, they faithfully, went to the special place in the forest and said the same prayer as their parents had. Sure enough, God appeared.