Friday July 22, 2016

An eNote from Rodney

Dear Trinity Family,

Methodist News: The Western North Carolina Conference is part of the Southeastern Jurisdiction. One of the Jurisdiction’s responsibilities to elect and appoint Bishops. Last week at Lake Junaluska the Southeastern Jurisdiction met and elected 5 new Bishops. Our Bishop, Larry Goodpaster is retiring and so the Western North Carolina Conference will be receiving a new Bishop by September 1. His name is Bishop Paul Leeland. He and been serving as Bishop of the Alabama West Florida Conference and now he will come and lead our conference. Let us look forward to his arrival and please pray for his good leadership.

If you haven’t had a chance to see Trinity highlighted in the West Asheville History video put out by New Belgium Brewery, here is the link. About halfway through you will meet Tom Harrison’s great nephew, James Harrison. James talks about Tom’s father who was one of the early developers of West Asheville.

Thank you for listening to my sermons these past several weeks as we have looked at the influence the early Puritan founders had on American culture. Their understanding of America as a new promised land, a city on a hill where God saw a new people doing a new thing in this land, reverberates through America. And not just with preachers, poets and academics. These are the lyrics from a modern rock & roll song about a man who wants a local girl (her name is Mary) to join him in his car where they can ride toward that light just over the horizon and build a new life together. The song is called “Thunder Road” and the writer is Bruce Springsteen. This is Puritan rock & roll.

Well now I’m no hero
That’s understood
All the redemption I can offer girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now?
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow
Back your hair
Well the night’s busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven’s waiting on down the tracks
Oh-oh come take my hand
We’re riding out tonight to case the promised land

Last Sunday in the sermon on whether God gets angry, one of the phrases I used to talk about God’s anger was to say that humans can break god’s heart. The Old Testament lectionary lesson for this Sunday is how God uses the broken heart of the prophet Hosea to show his love for Israel. The lesson I will preach from is Hosea 1:2-10.

I am looking forward to Sunday morning and I hope to see you there.

Sincerely,
Rodney

A link to reply directly to Rodney.
rodhagans@gmail.com