The 20th annual Souper Bowl of Caring will take place on Sunday, February 1, 2009. On that special Sunday, we invite you to make an extra effort to support our feeding ministries. The Souper Bowl of Caring is a national program to promote hunger awareness and offer concrete action. Though the program is national, the focus is local. Financial gifts may be given by making a check payable to United Methodist Church of Hartford – write Hunger Funds on the check’s memo line. Also, please bring canned goods, especially soup, with you to worship that Sunday. Please be generous and fill our sanctuary with food for the people of Hartford!

Luke 4: 14-21
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
On July 8, 1776, the bell in the Pennsylvania State House rang, calling to the people together to hear the first public reading of our Declaration of Independence.  Later, that same bell would become a symbol of the abolition movement, and became known as the Liberty Bell.   (more…)

John 2: 1-11
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
I was reintroduced to Mattie Stepanek a few days ago at the United Methodist Women’s dinner.  Mattie was born with a disease that disrupts the foundational functioning of the body, so that eventually your heart stops beating and your lungs stop breathing and your stomach stops digesting.  Children with this disease don’t live very long.  Mattie almost made it to 14, which is considered old for children with this disease. (more…)

Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
When an elephant is born, it typically weighs over 250 pounds.  Elephants are the largest land animal on earth.  I have only seen elephants at the circus or in the zoo or on television, but I can just imagine what a wild herd of elephants must be like.  They are amazingly powerful animals, and as adults can weigh 7 or 8 tons.  They are also quite intelligent.  Elephants, along with the great apes and bottlenose dolphins are among the only species capable of self-recognition.  They have also developed a very structured social order, with matriarchal family units that stick together.  They can even communicate over great distances using a sub-sonic rumblings that can travel many many miles. (more…)

Note: This is the letter I included in the January Epistle, so it might seem familiar.

Good intentions get a bad rap.

And I suppose I know why.  Too often we human beings intend to do the right thing, but merely intending to do the right thing doesn’t always mean that we actually do the right thing.  And then we make all the excuses in the world, reminding people around us that at least our intentions were good.

It is true, then, that good intentions simply aren’t enough.  As the letter to James teaches us, “…be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.  For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.”  Good intentions can easily lead to self-deceptions.

So, as this New Year begins, I want to invite you to have some good intentions, but match those intentions with some good actions.  I always make a few New Year’s resolutions, and like most people, I fail to live up to those resolutions by March.  Almost always it’s because I simply resolve to be different in some way, without thinking about how I will get from where I am to where I wan to be.  All the resolve in the world won’t help you if you refuse to look honestly at yourself – in the mirror as James says – and assess where you are now, before you imagine where you would like to go.

The gospel message we preach is about personal transformation.  We believe that people can in fact change, by the grace of God.  But no one said change was easy.  In fact, our faith says that if you want an image of what change looks like, look at the Cross of Christ.  Changing your life is possible, but not without facing the painful realities and tragic costs that change will entail.

One of the reasons I believe in “church” is because we need a place that encourages us to change, to grow, to become the people we long to be.  We need a community of fellow disciples who are also trying to change.  And we need to be reminded that our God is gracefully working out our transformation within us, even if we don’t see it or believe in it.  Church provides us that place and that community.

I hope you will express a few good intentions this New Year, but more than that, I hope you will initiate some good actions.  And when you start to struggle and change becomes difficult, turn to one of your fellow disciples, and find in them the encouragement and support you need to continue on your way.