Dr. Rich's Melheimian Maxims

Dissertation Acknowledgments

Here's what I wrote on page 1 of my dissertation for acknowledgments:

I offer first thanks to my old seminary professor and role model, Dr. Roland Martinson, for his sage advice twenty years ago when I asked him if I should pursue a doctorate. He told me, “Naw. Go get your education first.”

Second, thanks goes out to: Dr. BJ Jun, my dissertation advisor, for his wisdom, grace, counsel and friendship; my pastor and fellow DMIN traveler Dan Poffenberger, our SFS9 cohort and the good folks at George Fox Evangelical Seminary for their camaraderie and support; the brilliant Amy Kippen for convincing me I had to write a book on the topic of my last 20 years’ work at Faith Inkubators; Bill Greig III at Regal Publishing for testing these concepts with his own children and believing in the message enough to publish the book; David Shepherd, my literary agent, for his hard work and strategic advice; Ted and Robbie Baehr and the good folks at www.movieguide.org for their aid in research and marvelous publicity assistance with the book.

Thanks goes to the late Mike Yaconelli for talking me into staying in youth ministry once when I was burning out years ago; Dr. Carl George for challenging me to design new models for children and youth ministries; Drs. Tony Campolo and Bill Easum for letting me pick their brains and listen to their hearts over the years; Scott and Deanna Ness, for inspiring me with their dedication to these concepts in a house full of six little ones; Todd Ernster from “The Killer Hayseeds” and all the FINK Music Guild members for adding their passion, talents and energies to our 250 Bible verse songs that allow us to give families five years’ worth of weekly Scriptures for Step 2 (Read); Christy Smith from “Discovering Deaf Worlds” for signing the first 90 of our Bible songs in ASL; Debbie Streicher for a decade+ of friendship, family ministry insights and for dreaming up the “Faith Acts In The Home” name; Monty Lysne, Tom Collins and the rest of the Faith Inkubators staff over the years for their endless patience, hard work and often under-appreciated efforts on behalf of children, youth and families across the world.

Immeasurable thanks go to my wife, Arlyce Joy, and children Kathryn Elizabeth and Joseph Martin, for loving me in ways I needed to be loved, enriching my life in too many ways to number, and giving me a treasure bank of stories for the core of my life’s work, and the life in my core work.

Finally, I was too busy to even think of investing time in an advanced degree until Len Sweet showed up at an Aspen think-tank I was hosting for Methodist youth workers in 2009. “Your work isn’t bad,” he said, “but you should get some people smarter than you to take a look at it.”

A lot of smarter people and a doctorate later, I really must say Len was right.

Thanks, Len.

Meaning-Less

Looking back on the notes for my dissertation this year I found the following:

What is love? What is meaning? What's the point of life?

"The more the universe seems to be determined, the more it seems pointless." - Steve Weinberg

“Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear. . . . There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”
- William B. Provine, professor of biological sciences, Cornell University

A study by the Prince Trust in England showed that 10% of 16-25 year-olds agree with the statement “life is meaningless and is not worth living.”

Most people think that there is more to us than the 1-2-3 lbs of meat sitting inside the oblong bone box above our necks. There is very deep rooted intuition= at a very young age. Most think of being human as more than just physical. There is some sort of deeper reason, deeper self, deeper meaning. If neuroscience continues on its present trajectory – that of mechanism – then everything, from love to loyalty to right and wrong, and everything you belief will be one day thought to live only in the gears of the machine. Free will.

We are very wonderfully physical mechanism. But are we anything more than that? If not, does that contradict the world of religion? Moral and legal responsibility – if everything I do is caused by the physical processes in my brain, can I be blamed for the genes I was born with? “My brain made me do it!” is the final excuse. If all we are is physical stuff, why should I care about you? About poverty? About hunger? About abuse? About anything other than me, for that matter?
-----

Contrary to this present “the Universe is a random accident and your meaningless life is not much more” worldview, the Bible gives us identity, worth, and a role to play in the greatest love story of all time.

The Bible shows us the God who created it all. The God who came again and again through the prophets, priests, shepherds, and kings. The God who finally, at the fullness of time, came in flesh through the obedience of a peasant girl and the power of the Holy Spirit to walk among us. The God who came in love, in grace and truth to rescue a loved but lost people. The God who abandoned it all for our sake, then was abandoned by the very people he came to save. The God who went silently to the beating, the cross, the grave for the lost, lost love he came to save. The God who went to hell for us so we wouldn’t have to. The God who went through hell to bring us to our home.

You can have your choice of stories and life philosophies. I choose Jesus. Everything else is looking like it's just rather... meaning-less.

Wholly and Holy Different

Wholly and Holy Different 

By Rich Melheim

 

I kidnapped Pastor Ray last Sunday.

Against objections that it wasn't worth the hassle to break him out of the nursing home for an hour of worship that he wouldn't remember, and against the accusation that I was doing this more for ME than for him, I kidnapped dad, literally lifted him from his wheelchair and plopped him into my car, and drove him to church. 

 

He received 8 handshakes, 5 hugs and 3 kisses in the Narthex from my sister's friends within the first three minutes.

I'm guessing more action than he's seen since I was here in May for his 92nd birthday - the last time he left the home  for "church."

 

He slept 48 of the 58 minutes of the worship service, holding my hand. He  woke when they sang the old hymn "I Love to Tell the Story." (I whipped out my cell phone and got that on tape.) Then he slept again. He woke to pass the peace and, when three different women reached out to shake his hands, he clasped their hands and wouldn’t let go.

I smiled at him when we got back to the pew, and caught his eyes long enough to draw a smile back.

 

I didn't wait for the officiating pastor to come to the back of the church for Holy Communion. Instead, I wheeled him right up front where he reached out his hand for both the bread and little cup of wine. I was told he couldn't feed himself anymore, but this was somehow wholly and holy different. 

 

Then "Go in peace and serve the Lord". Then he whispered - mouthed, really - a weak "Thanks be to God." Then he closed his weary eyes.

 

 

In-Con-Venience

Yes, we could have much more easily stayed in the nursing home yesterday morning. Yes, I could have wheeled out into the group room for their hymn sing and sermon. It would have been much more convenient for everyone concerned, and not so hard on his frail body and my recently broken and splinted arm.

 

Yes, it was a pain to dress him, drag him out, lift him into the car, lift him out of the car, drag him into church, drag him out of church, drag him to Dairy Queen in and out again, and drag him back to the nursing home.

 

All that hassle for a couple of Sunday morning hours, a handful of hugs and hands and kisses, a tiny wafer and sip of wine, and the thread of a hymn that he remembered for a moment but does not remember today.

 

All that for a fleeting moment of dignity and meaning that dug deep into what was left of Pastor Ray and let his body be part of that long-lost body in his long-lived and gradually lost mind.

 

Yes, it may have been more for me than it was for him. 

 

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Losing Our Minds

 

I once asked Dr. Ani Patel at the Neurosciences Institute to define "the mind.” This neuroscientist who specializes in music, language and the brain answered: "The mind is the brain meets the body meets the environment."

 

By Dr. Patel’s definition, when a person loses his legs, his bowels, his ability to chew hard foods, he's lost part of his body, and thus part of his mind.

 

When he loses his spouse after 52 years - his main source of touch, his main source of conversation, his main reason to get up in the morning - he's lost the most important part of his environment. By definition, he's lost a huge piece of his mind.

 

When he buries his 5 brothers and sisters and most of his friends, he buries a little piece of his mind with each funeral. When he loses his house, his drivers' license, his church... you got it. He's lost more and more of his mind.

 

The one thing he DOESN'T have to lose as he ages is his church. If we would only make the effort to grasp and clasp our elders tighter, ever tighter with each of their inevitable losses; if we would only take the time to ask each household, each single, each family with small children, each family with teens, each young adult to EVERY Sunday adopt EVERY elder into a intentional surrogate faith family; if we would only see the value of placing the old wrinkles hands into pudgy fresh hands and decide that going through the hassle of dragging these treasures out of the nursing home EVERY Sunday rather than on infrequent special events – this would not simply be a way of honoring our Fathers and Mothers. It would not simply be a way of giving them a moment of fleeting dignity.  This would not simply be a way of restoring to them the joy of their salvation.

This would be a way of keeping them from losing the last shred of their minds. A shred they need not lose.

 

And it WOULD be as much for us as it is for them.

A Wholly Holy Different Church

 

Such a church that honored it’s elders and held them tighter, ever tighter would be a wholly and holy different church. Such a church would raise a a wholly and holy different kind of child, youth, and young adult.

 

Such a church would have a past and a future. For such a church would find a future in their past.

I know where to find the future of your church. Dig out the list of names you read on the last 5 All Saint’s Days, and the list of core families who have joined in the last 5 years.

Call them together and call them to gather. Give them as a gift to each other. Command and demand that no such treasures will be left to rot alone and forgotten in your church ever again.

 

You simply won’t allow that kind of terrible stewardship among the people of God in your care.

 

 

Rich Melheim

Founder, Faith Inkubators & the Preschool Incubators Project

www.faithink.com

 

 

PHOTO: Saturday's fresh fish picnic with Pastor Ray.

 

Neurology Meets Theater in Christian Education

Just turned in my "A Neurological Case for Designing Performance Arts into the Core of Christian Education in the Post-Gutenberg/Neo-Google World" paper. It's the basis for all future Faith Ink materials, but also for the preschool incubators project.

Download Melheim_dmin546_essaylong3

Download ApplicationB

Download AppendixC.1

Dismissing the Children

Many children "dismiss" the children in worship. What does it mean to dismiss? Here's how one website defines it:

 

Dismiss

---

To send away; to give leave of departure; to cause or permit to go; to put away.

---

To discard; to remove or discharge from office, service, or employment; as, the king dismisses his ministers; the matter dismisses his servant.

---

To lay aside or reject as unworthy of attentions or regard, as a petition or motion in court.

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Dismission. (Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/words/di/dismiss155527.html#ixzz1Ocp1P3nL)

Read this again. Discard. Lay aside. Reject as unworthy.

Is that the message you really want to give children? If so, you might as well tell the last kid out the door to turn off the lights and put the for-sale sign on the lawn. They'll be gone and they'll never come back.

You can't come back to a place you've never been.

 

Humming, Peace and Death

Great couple lines on page 147 in "The World in Small Boats" by Oliver O'Donovan that talk about age, wisdom, knowledge and preparation for death:

"Youth has its glory, of which age must stand in envy. And there is no more terrifying challenge, no part of life where we are more totally bereft of understanding and thrust back upon trust, than age's last and most decisive examination, death, when the blood fails to reach the brain and all the Portuguese irregular verbs we ever learned cease to be at our command, when all we have relied on, all we have been filled with, is drained out of us. If wisdom can be possessed in the end, it can only be an end beyond that utter dispossession. But then we shall need, not less but more than ever, an orientation to our state which is given us in knowledge. For what we can still know when we no longer know anything else, the knowledge that will serve us when all knowledge else is vain, is knowledge indeed, knowledge that confers life, even life in death."

Beautiful.

My mother was humming hymns in her last hours of life, coming in and out of consciousness. "It is well with my soul..."

When I went in for my stent to open an 80% blocked coronary artery, I found myself humming, too. She had peace. She modeled peace. She gave me a gift and a hope of peace that I took with me to the operating room.

My heart stopped a few hours later in the recovery room and they had to pound me back to life.

I woke humming.

Love in the Face of Hate

We're talking in my doctoral group about the ugliness of the crucifixion, and the beauty of Christ's love in the face of that hate.

Love in the face of hate... a beautiful concept.

I always wondered about the "beatitudes" being translated as "blessed" in the recent Bibles.

What is "beauty" and what does it have to do with "blessed?"

In the material context, most of the world would call the "blessed" as those who are blessed with money, power, beauty.

In the Jesus point of view, they are the poor in spirit, the ones who mourn, the meek, the peace-makers, those who are reviled and despised.

He turns everything upside down, brings everything high down, and brings everything up as he is lifted up.

So when hate is met with love, both the hateful and the hated are blessed.

And it is beautiful.

Dr. Ted Baehr on "The Meaning of Meaning"

I sat down with Dr. Ted Baehr, founder/publisher of Movieguide.org and founder/chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission to talk about crafting a meaningful screenplay, the meaning of meaning, the negative and positive effects of the entertainment industry, and advice for preachers, teachers and parents. This is interview #2 for my dissertation on "The Meaning of Meaning." (Sidebar: Kathryn and I are joining Ted's Movieguide Gala Awards again this year. We'll give you a blog and Facebook report Feb. 19 and let you in on what film wins the $100K prize.

Here's Dr. Ted... in three parts:

Part 1: Crafting a Meaningful Screenplay

Part 2: The Meaning of Meaning and the Power of Media to Influence Negative and Positive

Part 3: Advice for Parents, Pastors & Teachers (plus an invitation to the 2011 Movieguide Gala)

O Lord, Stuck in Nashville Again

I was supposed to meet with the UMC Publishing House in Nashville today, but with 3 inches of dangerous snow, and the temperatures hovering around a deadly 33 degrees, the entire state has ground to a frozen halt.

Being from Dakota/Minnesota, I have little pity and can only smile.

(-;

If one must be stuck, I'm stuck in a rather marvelous, educational, stimulating place: in a hotel room with Carl George, the guy who is slightly responsible for me getting fired up enough to start the small group confirmation system at Trinity in Stillwater and spread it into a movement in the Lutheran church 20 years ago.

It's actually a rare treat! Let it snow.

Last night I shot a video interview of Carl for my doctoral dissertation on "the meaning of meaning" and a second one on "The FAITH 5". Between licking his cancer, getting kicked and slandered by pastors from the left to the right about his methods and models for church growth, and touching the lives of tens of thousands of people through spawning an international small group movement, he's had some rather deep insights.

We're only a couple miles from his consulting job at the World Outreach Church, a fast-growing non-denominational church Carl has been mentoring/incubating/consulting them for 15 years. Their pastor and staff have valued Carl's friendship and used many of his principles to grow from 200 to 8000 members, with a 20% growth a year for the last 5 years.

Since many Lutheran mission churches never hit 200 people and many are actually worshipping FEWER PEOPLE five years after their start-up year than after their first year, all I can say is "Wack 'em upside of the head, and start into systems thinking!"

Carl doesn't think its very hard to grow a church at all. Just love people, put 'em to work for the kingdom the moment they say they want to be a part of the church, and focus on making your neighborhood a better place.

Oh yeah, and have wide halls, great coffee, a great nursery and plenty of parking.

(-;

Carl and I are talking about free clinics and literacy programs at the core of neighborhood outreach as a model for mission churches. More on all that, plus the video interviews on "the meaning of meaning" and "the FAITH 5" with Carl later. Right now I think I'll have some breakfast and enjoy watching the demolition derby on the Nashville morning news.

Welcome to the WiiG (wee-gee) World

I'm getting ready to submit an artical to Newsweek, calling for a renaming of the kids born January 1, 2000 and beyond. I'm calling them Generation WiiG (wee-gee or Ouija). I'll explain later.