What follows is my July 2020 newsletter article to the Roanoke District of the United Methodist Church. 

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.” – Acts 17:22

          A few years before I was born, Joni Mitchell composed a song titled “Both Sides, Now,” a song inspired by a novel by Saul Bellow. The song includes the lyric “I’ve looked at life from both sides now.” I have to say that this lyric speaks to my life in this time and place as I learn to inhabit the ministry of Roanoke District Superintendent.

It is a strange and difficult time to be in ministry, as of course, you already know. When Bishop Lewis approached me about joining her Cabinet, I had no idea how much of the work would not be serving as “missional strategist” as the Discipline envisions, and I knew not how much of the work would be directed, if not dictated, by COVID-19. What I imagined would be numerous drives on backroads to churches and pastors across the Roanoke District has been replaced by things like Zoom meetings and reading reports from Healthy Church Teams.

I realized the other day that I have been a pastor for 1,196 Sundays, and a District Superintendent for two. Prior to moving to Roanoke, I served as the lead pastor of Reveille UMC on the Richmond District, and for my last quarter-year there, ministry was largely dominated by filming worship, editing video, uploading services, forming a Healthy Church Team, and learning how to do ministry in what felt like a distant, disconnected, bleak new landscape, as I partnered with anxious staff and anxious laity, all while trying to manage my own coronavirus-induced anxiety.

And yet, as difficult as it was, I give thanks for this local church experience. I am one of five active clergy in the Conference who have experienced ministry as both a pastor and D.S during this pandemic. and without this experience, I do not see how I could regard this odd and holy work God has called us to share from “both sides now.”

All of this is to say that I believe that those experiences at Reveille have helped me to read what you ask and send to me as a local church pastor as much or more than I do as a Superintendent. I find myself thinking, “Who would I have stand at the door to make sure masks are being worn? What would I say to someone anxious to complete a health form? How would it feel for me to preach wearing a mask? How would I help assure that the people in my charge were safe?”

I remember worrying about apportionments and waiting to see what kind of offering would come in for the week. I remember checking YouTube analytics to see how many views the service received and how it compared to the week before.

In Acts 17, a greatly distressed Paul stands in front of the Areopagus in Athens and speaks the words at the top of this page, greatly destressed because the idols were so many and the job seemed so large, if not impossible. So, what does he do? He simply starts where he can and he does his best: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way…”

It is a profoundly difficult time to do ministry in an already post-Christian world. Even before I became your District Superintendent, I was convinced that at no time in the history of this land have clergy and laity had to work as hard we do today. And yet, as I read documents sent to me from so many of you, I find that they are not the dry safety manuals I thought they would be. Instead, they read like love letters written by the church to the people, members and neighbors, saying simply “We love you and want you to be safe and well,” all in the name of the One who described faithfulness as loving God and loving neighbor as oneself.”

Thank you for all you are doing. I know it is not easy. None of us are alone. God is with us, and I am grateful to the God of life for allowing me to be in this time and place together with you.

Grace and peace,

Doug

It was only my second day in the parsonage of my rural, three-point circuit of churches when the phone rang and a voice on the other end of the line informed me that John Ben Varga had died. John Ben was, in many ways, a patriarch of that small community, and his death in the middle of the week meant that my first sermon in my new pastoral appointment would be a funeral sermon for someone known across the county, just not by me.

Almost immediately after I received the phone call regarding John Ben, I received another call from the pastor who was my predecessor in that appointment, offering to return and help in any way I needed, or to allow me to handle things myself. I told him I appreciated his generous offer but felt comfortable handling things myself.

So, I drove up the long, dirt road to the old farmhouse that had been John Ben’s, where his widow and children awaited, and the process I have known a hundred times began: experiencing the life of a saint of God through the eyes and stories of those who loved him the best as together we began the sacred work of planning worship to glorify the God who had given and redeemed this life so well lived.

It is difficult to overstate how important experiences like the one I just described are in forming the critically important relationship between pastor and parish. As time passed in that appointment, I was able to witness those three congregations accomplish frightening yet heroic tasks, ministries I am to this day proud to have experienced with them, humbled by the trust they placed in me, trust which began to be cultivated on a cloudy summer evening in an old farmhouse with sisters and brothers in Christ on the worst day of their lives.

As time has passed, I have only grown in my appreciation for the space provided to me by my colleague and predecessor in that appointment; space to begin forming the relationships that enabled those frightening and heroic tasks to come to fruition. Had he not, everything could, and likely would have been different. He humbly and graciously enabled me to begin my ministry in that context in the best way possible.

This is why, in our United Methodist tradition and practice, your pastor cannot come back.

So much of the relationship between clergy and the people we are charged to serve is forged in exactly the kind of settings for which we hope former pastors will return, settings which include baptisms, weddings, and funerals. And yet, allowing your new pastor to walk these sacred paths with you is in so many ways the means by which they truly become your pastor, not in title alone, but in reality.

When that rural appointment ended, one of the people I felt closest to was Jon Ben’s widow. In so many ways, the pastoral care I was able to offer when that pastorate was in its infancy set the trajectory for everything that followed, as did the hours I spent in hospital rooms, funeral parlors, living rooms, and my study, hours God used to bind our hearts together in Christian love.

As someone who has lived half of his life under the obligations of our United Methodist itinerant system, I can attest that this is not easy. Not long after I became Reveille’s pastor, I returned to my study after Sunday worship to find the voicemail light blinking on my phone. The message was from a member of my former pastorate immediately prior, a woman who was one of three generations of a family in that church. In her message, she told me that her father, also a member of that church, was dying and was calling out my name, asking for me. “Could you please come to the hospital and pray with him? Please?”

And I confess to you that it took every dutiful bone in my body to call her and assure her that her new pastor would gladly come and minister to her and her mother and father in their time of need, and that he would do so with great love and grace. I truly wanted to go.

That is, until my mind went back to a dusty road on a summer evening that led to an old farmhouse where the Varga family awaited the arrival of a young pastor who they did not know but who they would graciously allow to walk with them through all that was to come.

I say all of this to tell you that when I am gone, I am not creating space for its own sake, and I am certainly not doing so because I have stopped caring for you. Instead, I am doing so because I am making space that the Rev. Dr. Peter M. Moon will ably and lovingly fill as he walks with you through all that is to come. When the end of June rolls around, he, along with the Revs. Stephen Coleman and Kelley Lane will be your pastor, your prophet, and your priest. As you come to know one another, I invite you to give him the grace to inhabit that space in your life created by the joy and heartbreak of this life, for it is in that sacred space that he will become your shepherd, your guide, and a caretaker of your soul.

Grace and peace,

Doug

February 27, 2019

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

By now, you have certainly learned that the General Conference, the highest decision-making body of the United Methodist Church, passed on Tuesday legislation known as the Traditional Plan. This plan reinforces existing restrictions against same-gender weddings by United Methodist clergy and prohibitions against the ordination of LGBTQ persons. These prohibitions against marriage and ordination have existed in our denomination since 1972. However, as a result of the passing of the Traditional Plan, the penalties for clergy who violate these rules are now swifter and more punitive than before.

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Some months ago, we at Reveille assembled a team to talk about how to talk about the work of the Commission on a Way Forward and the future of our denomination at our church. One of the ideas that came out of our discussions was to create a toolkit to help inform and empower our congregation on this matter. As we created this resource, we did so with an eye to making something that might be useful to other congregations as well. You can find it at the bottom of this page. Feel free to use it as you wish. We hope this is a blessing to you as your congregation moves into God’s future.

This month, my first pastoral appointment Warwick Memorial United Methodist Church celebrates 150 years of mission and ministry. What follows is the letter I wrote to be included among their keepsakes for the day.

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Reveille people: in worship tomorrow, September 3, 2017, I will be discussing flood buckets as a way to respond to the effects of Hurricane Harvey’s devastation in Texas. Flood buckets are wonderful resources for those helping with the recovery efforts as they are filled with cleaning supplies. We made one today as a family, and it was a lot of fun. The instructions are here, and we will have copies available at church. Get one to church by Reveille Day (September 10), and we will get it to Texas! This is a fun and easy way to make a difference.

As always, you can make a monetary gift here, and remember, 100% of your gift goes to the people in need, because the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) pays its administrative costs via a special offering churches like ours receive in March on UMCOR Sunday.

What follows is my monthly letter to the congregation, which is printed in our newsletter.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

– Romans 12:21

We lived in Crozet, a bedroom community of Charlottesville, Virginia for nine years between 2005 and 2014, while I was serving as the pastor of Crozet United Methodist Church. Tracy taught fourth grade for eight years in the neighboring Albemarle County public schools, and for one year, in the city of Charlottesville, at Johnson Elementary. Our youngest daughter Claire was born at the old downtown Martha Jefferson Hospital.

And now, it is somehow all different. On Saturday, East Market Street, the place where we once watched a parade, became a racial battleground. The Downtown Mall, where Ellen as a preschooler used to hold our hands and slide atop the fallen autumn leaves is now the place where Heather Heyer was murdered by a white supremacist who had driven to Charlottesville from Ohio. The verdant golf course we used to pass on our way into town is the site of the helicopter crash that took the lives of Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates of the Virginia State Police.

We were vacationing in South Carolina on Saturday, when the violence took place. It was heartbreaking to watch on television and the internet: this evil imported into our quiet little city. It was a helpless feeling being two states away while hell was breaking loose a dozen miles from our old home. I cannot imagine what it was like to actually be there, in the midst of it all.

That Saturday night, I had a dream where I was supposed to take a document to the University of Richmond, and when I arrived on campus, I realized I had forgotten the document. As I began to return home (for some reason, on foot), two students began to harass me. They followed me everywhere I went, trying to get away from them, hurling epithets, insulting everything about me, pushing me from behind, threatening violence against me.

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