Resurrection after Death

“Why do you believe in the resurrection? How do you know it actually happened?”

It may seem like any person seeking to be a pastor should know the answer to these off the top of their heads. But, as I sat in my annual conversation with my district’s Committee on Ministry, I was caught off guard. I had come prepared to answer a different question – “Do you believe in resurrection?” I was ready to share how, “Yes, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yes, I believe Jesus was raised from the dead and brought back to life. Yes, I trust the accounts of Scripture that promise we will experience bodily resurrection like Christ.”

Maybe what caught me off guard was not the question exactly, but the words used and the intention behind them. Not “Do you believe,” but…Why? Not “Can you prove it,” but...How do you know?

I’ve been trying to answer those questions ever since. Years later, and I still ask myself all the time “Why do I believe in the resurrection? How do I know it’s real?”

I believe in the resurrection because I’ve seen resurrection happen in my own life and in the world around me. For just thirty years of life so far, I’ve seen a lot of death up close and personal. Not just death in the end of individual human lives, but the death of institutions, of programs, of the world as I used to know it.

On April 30, 2011, I graduated as part of the last graduating class from Lambuth University. I still remember the day I got my letter of acceptance and offer of full tuition scholarship to Lambuth. Opening the envelope with shaky hands, I cried as I read over the words of the letter. Not tears of joy or relief, but tears of grief. I didn’t want to go to Lambuth. My mom had gone there for college. It was only an hour away from home. I had some older friends who were students there, and I didn’t want them to think I was just following them. I wanted my own experience, something new and exciting that would grow and stretch me. So, I sat in my bedroom and cried because I knew a full tuition scholarship meant that I should go, that I needed to go to Lambuth for college. Ten minutes later, I dried my tears and emerged with my mind made up—I’d do the right and responsible thing. I’d go to Lambuth.

Little did I know then, Lambuth would be exactly what I had hoped for in a college experience and more! I would be stretched not only academically, but also spiritually, by the professors I met there – Dr. Gene Davenport, Dr. Cindy Wesley, Dr. Charles Mayo, Dr. Manning Garrett, Dr. Joy Austin, and Chaplain Steven Fonville…just to name a few because I could never name them all. Yes, I would run into those friends who were already students there, but I would also meet so many more, new friends, cherished souls who would help me become who I was meant to be and friends I would keep for a lifetime. I would grow as a person of character through the friendships I formed with staff, administration, and other students, as well as my decision to stay at Lambuth even after the school was placed on accreditation probation and its financial unsustainability was exposed publicly. I would forge a new bond and depth in my relationship with my mom because now we shared Lambuth, but we each had our own unique experiences of what it meant to us. I would learn what true loyalty and selfless servanthood looked like as, during the darkest days at the end of Lambuth, staff and faculty showed up for weeks on end without pay to teach, serve, and help students like me. I would meet and fall in love with my future husband and make the best decision of my life to say “YES!” when Adam asked me to marry him in front of the Lambuth gates. I’d even learn how to pastor and grieve at the same time as I walked through the unexpected death of a friend, Morgan, with my sorority sisters and our campus.

On the day we remembered Morgan’s birthday for the second time after she passed away, the Board of Directors decided and announced that Lambuth University would close at the end of the academic year in 2011, I learned what it felt like when an institution, a place that had bestowed upon me so many gifts, a community that had given my life so much meaning and direction, dies.

But, as the good story goes, God wasn’t done with Lambuth yet. Yes, the Lambuth I knew, the Lambuth I loved, and the Lambuth I had given four years of learning, service, and dedication would no longer be the same. Still, even into its death shroud, God was weaving strands of resurrection. Soon after the decision to close Lambuth University, we found out that the University of Memphis had decided to purchase the campus and would open it as an extension campus. Within four years of the U of M taking over the school, enrollment was over 800 students, double the enrollment during most of my time at Lambuth. The U of M was able to invest money and energy into much needed renovations for campus facilities and retained on staff many of the influential professors and administration who were the heart and soul of Lambuth. The student body continued to keep the Lambuth Eagle Spirit alive, and the newly formed Wesley Foundation under Steven Fonville’s leadership engaged more students in spiritual growth and discipleship than it seemed we ever had regularly attend chapel services. Only through death, a death that hurt deep in my heart and soul, was God able to bring new life through resurrection to Lambuth.

God brought resurrection out of the closing of West Nashville UMC, the congregation where I served as an intern during my time at Vanderbilt Divinity School. At West Nashville, I met Jesus in the face of the neighbors experiencing poverty and homelessness who attended our Thursday Night Community Meal. When the congregation closed and merged with St. John’s UMC down Charlotte Pike, they took on the mission of the Community Meal, ensuring our friends on the streets still had a place to come, sit, rest, and share a meal on Thursday nights. A church even still worships on the property (bought and renovated by a commercial developer) where West Nashville used to sit – a continuing witness to God’s radical and inclusive love for all.

God brought resurrection out of the end of the Turner Leadership Scholars program, which I had the immense privilege to participate in during seminary. Though I was among the last dozen or so students to be part of the program, I have continued long after graduation to connect with and lean on my fellow Turner scholars across the United Methodist connection for advice and counsel. I meet each week via online video chat with my covenant discipleship group, friends who were part of the Turner program, and who have become my deepest, most trusted relationships in ministry as we unpack the intersections of life, ministry, and our own spiritual journeys together.

God brought resurrection out of a terrible season in my life. In 2014, I graduated from seminary on Friday to come home and find out my husband had lost his job the next Monday. When our plan had been to stay in Nashville for me to pursue CPE and Adam to work on his social work license, we quickly made plans to come back home to Memphis, not sure what the future would hold. Over that summer, my mother was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor wrapping around her spine which was removed in an emergency surgery 24 hours after it was discovered. Because we were available in a way we would not have been before Adam lost his job, we were able to move in with her to help her recover and transition to Social Security disability. In September, once Mom was more stable, Adam and I were offered jobs in the span of the same week—he continuing to change the world through social work with Youth Villages and me beginning what would become a beautiful journey with Bolivar FUMC (more about that story in a blog to come). And now, though she still experiences discomfort daily from permanent nerve damage caused by the tumor that nearly paralyzed her, my mom is living fully for Jesus—teaching Bible study with me every week at Grace Place UMC in the women’s prison, leading small group for older elementary children on Sunday mornings, volunteering at a Bible club on Wednesdays at Sea Isle School, serving as the Lay Leader for Colonial Park UMC, and so much more!

During a particularly challenging season of ministry for me, my good friend and mentor Dr. Angela Harris commented, “I don’t know why you’ve had to face so much death and so many endings in your life, but God must have a purpose for it.”

At the 180^th session of the Memphis Annual Conference this year, lay and clergy delegates will vote whether or not to dissolve our conference and form a new conference, combining with the Tennessee Conference. Though I know this decision feels like death in some ways for us in Memphis, I have learned…God will bring resurrection—resurrection for our lives and for the kingdom. Always! If we just have eyes to see it.

I don’t think anyone would argue with the fact that we are in a difficult time in the life of the United Methodist Church. The path towards peace, grace, and love seems difficult. I’m not sure what God will do with the people called Methodist as we seek to move forward from the conflict and harm of General Conference 2019, conflict and pain we have been living with in earnest since 1972.

Maybe the purpose of the deaths I’ve experienced so far in my life is this…that I would come to believe deeply in the promise of resurrection at all times, so that I could answer these questions even when it feels like the denomination I love is at its breaking point.

Why do I believe in resurrection? Because I’ve seen it. At Lambuth University. At West Nashville UMC. Through the Turner Leadership Scholars program and the friends it brought me. In the lives of the women I read Scripture with each week in prison at Grace Place UMC. In my own life.

How do I know its real? Because I’ve experienced death, up close and personal. And, out of that death, I have witnessed God through the love of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit bring the abundant life of resurrection.

May you experience the Grace and Peace Jesus brings through resurrection after death. 

--Amanda HW

ahwGC2020@gmail.com

Why I am running for General Conference 2020

On the evening of February 25^th in the span of just thirteen hours, 15,529 young people from the United Methodist Church across the globe added their signatures online to support the Young People’s Statement to GeneralConference 2019. While there were many things I found inspiring about this letter to which I signed my name, one particular piece of information included in the statement distressed me…

“Only 7% of seated delegates are young people, people under the age of 35.”

While I didn’t expect people under the age of 35 to have overwhelming representation, it shocked me and stung my heart that the generation who will live the longest with the impact of decisions made at the global church level only comprised 60 of the 864 delegates who gathered in St. Louis this year.

And, so, this charge came from the young people present at General Conference, “At this year’s annual conference, elect a young person to your 2020 delegation. Not as a reserve, but as someone seated with a vote on the floor. Mentor a young person to run. Advocate for a young person to be elected. Show up for the young people in your life, and actually celebrate them around these tables in 2020. If we are actually part of the Body, it is time to bring our voice and vote around these tables.”

A few weeks later when I met a friend for lunch, I asked her, “What are we going to do about electing a young person as part of our delegation this year?” I would have never expected the next words that came out of her mouth, “I think you should run.” What?!? Me? No. Of course, I love my denomination. I care deeply about its history, its present reality, and its future. I’ve been discerning God’s call, following the Holy Spirit, and preparing for ordained ministry since I was 14 years old. But, me as a delegate to General Conference? Who am I? So, I told my friend that I would pray about it, not sure I was the right person and doubtful I had in me what it would take to say yes.

Over the next few weeks, as I discussed my hope with others that our conference would be serious and intentional about electing young and diverse persons to our delegation, this same thought kept coming up again and again.

“Are you considering running?”

“Throw your name in and see what happens.”

“Have you submitted your nomination form?”

“I’m praying with you as you decide whether or not to run.”

Over and over I heard encouragement from people who I knew weren’t talking to one another. Finally, I  submitted, through weeks of prayer, that this just might be the Holy Spirit nudging me to place my trust in God and offer myself as a candidate for the Memphis Annual Conference delegation to General Conference 2020.

As I’ve reflected on what is important to me and why the Holy Spirit might have led me towards running this year, these are the things I consider.

I care deeply about ministry with young people who are disciples of Jesus. I’ve learned to describe my call to ministry as a puzzle that God puts together one piece at a time, and the puzzle piece God has revealed to me over the past few years is that I am called to be an elder in the United Methodist Church who invests especially in children, youth, and young adults—not only nurturing them in faith but, also, connecting and incorporating them into the life of the wider congregation  and giving them opportunities to learn and lead in worship, Bible study, mission, and more. As part of this work, I serve on the Memphis Conference Youth Leadership Team that engages our youth in ministry and mission. I’ve volunteered my time and leadership for weeks of summer camp and weekend retreats at Lakeshore Camp and Retreat Center. I mentored a young person who is running as a lay delegate for General Conference 2020. If elected, I would use my voice and vote to advocate for young people, both lay and clergy, who are following Jesus, faithfully serving the United Methodist Church, and engaging the world with the good news of the Gospel.

Since entering the appointive system in 2016, I have cherished the relationships I have formed with pastors serving alongside me. In Hardeman and McNairy counties where I have served under appointment, many of the local congregations are served by local licensed pastors (LLPs). During county group meetings or district clergy meetings, I have been honored to form and deepen relationships with the women and men who dedicate their lives to following their call to ministry in this way. Some of the most creative, innovative, and passionate ministry and mission I have witnessed across our connection has been led by LLPs. It boggles my mind and saddens my heart to think that some other clergy look down on or diminish the important and vital role of LLPs in our connection. Not only would we be lost in supplying churches with pastors in the Memphis Conference without them, but we would miss the richness they bring. At the Memphis Annual Conference in 2017, when as a provisional elder I was not allowed to vote on the constitutional amendments brought forth from General Conference 2016, I experienced a small taste of what it might feel like to be a local licensed pastor who gives the best of their labor to God’s church and mission yet feels they are not valued enough to have a seat at the table on certain matters. If elected, I would use my voice and vote to think creatively about how we could work together to lift up local licensed pastors and recognize more fully their vital role in the United Methodist Church.

Over the last few weeks, I have spent some time looking over journals from past Memphis Annual Conference meetings and compiling a list of the delegations we have sent to General Conference over the past 50 years. Here are some of the interesting things I’ve learned through that study:

• Since the first General Conference of the United Methodist Church in 1972, our laity in Memphis have always elected a woman with voice and vote to serve as a delegate.
• 1988 (the year I was born) was the first delegation to include a clergywoman delegate with voice and vote, thirty-two years after women were granted full clergy rights in the Methodist Church in 1956 (the year my mother was born). A clergywoman has been elected with voice and vote in every Memphis Conference delegation since 1988, with the exception of two – the two most recent delegations to General Conference in 2016 and 2019.
• Since 1972, only five times have elected Memphis Conference clergy delegates with voice and vote been persons of color (1980, 1988, 2000, 2004, 2008).
• Only twice have elected laity of color from the Memphis Conference had voice and vote at General Conference (2000 and 2004).
• Since the ages of delegates are not published in our journals, I cannot with accuracy make definitive conclusions about how young people have been represented with voice and vote. But, from viewing the photographs of elected delegates over the years, I do not believe electing young clergy or young lay people has been a consistent priority of the Memphis Annual Conference.

The delegates we elect with voice and vote to General Conference must reflect the diversity of the Memphis Annual Conference, especially the racial, ethnic, gender, and age diversity of our clergy and laity. I did not arrive easily at my decision to offer myself as a delegate to be elected. It involved countless conversations, many sleep-interrupted nights, a whole lot of prayer, and, finally, surrender to the Holy Spirit. I humbly ask my clergy siblings in the Memphis Annual Conference to prayerfully consider voting for me to represent us at General Conference 2020. Over the next week, I’ll be posting several more blogs to share more of my story, calling, and passion for our shared mission and ministry with you. If you have any questions or would like to have further conversation, I’d be happy to email you, talk to you on the phone, or sit down with you for coffee or a meal. You can contact me at ahwGC2020@gmail.com.

Beyond myself, I ask all of our lay and clergy delegates to Annual Conference this year to intentionally seek out, engage, and support candidates who are young persons (35 years and under), who are persons of color, and/or who are women. Give voice and vote to those who dedicate their lives to God’s mission for the church in the world and, yet, are so often underrepresented at the table. Let’s see together what God can do through us.

Grace and Peace,
Amanda Hartmann Westmoreland

Ordination: A New Work Begun and a Good Work Continued

In one month, I will be ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church. Not much else in this life has felt as simultaneously joyful and weighty to me. As I pray towards that day, it seems important to mark down my thoughts, to slow down and step back and reflect as I approach a day I have been praying for and striving towards for nearly seventeen years. 

After some searching for and dusting off this blog space I created several years ago and have returned to time from time...I have settled on this forum as the place to record these thoughts and to share them as a way to invite others to join me in prayer over the next month and the days, years, and seasons to follow. 

At the ordination service, the bishop will lay hands on my head and pray "Almighty God, pour upon Amanda the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a elder in Christ's holy church." On at least three other days, hands have been laid on my head as someone prayed for the Holy Spirit to work in me or to be poured out on me -- the day I was baptized, the day I was confirmed, and the day I was commissioned as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church. All of these days are special and sacred to me, yet my heart has been drawn in a special way to my baptism during my journey to ordination. 

On the day I was baptized, these words of love and promise were prayed over me by my grandfather, "Amanda Laura-Leigh, the Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ." Several years ago as I was going through family photo albums, a found a picture of my mother holding me on her lap on the garden bench outside of the first home I lived in. Written on the back of the photograph was "Amanda's baptism -- February 12, 1989." Though I had heard stories about my baptism, had seen the pictures of family gathered from near and far, had celebrated and remembered it throughout the years, I had never known the exact date. Grabbing my phone, I set a calendar notification to alert me every year at 9:00 am on February 12 to "Remember my baptism, and be thankful."

When I walked into the sunroom at Lakeshore Camp and Retreat Center at 8:55 for worship before the interviews began on a February morning in West Tennessee (which is to say I don't remember if was cold or warm or inbetween), I was a tightly wound knot of mixed emotions -- nervousness, excitement, doubt, confidence, insecurity, anxiety -- as anyone would expect. I was excited to see my friends, both the other candidates for ordination and the members of the Board of Ordained Ministry. I was anxious to get started, so that I would just know what the answer would be. Like I had told my congregations the Sunday before, there were two possible outcomes for my interview, a good one and a better one. The good one would be a "Not yet;" the better one a "Yes!" As I settled in next to friends, began to lift my voice in songs of praise with others already seated, and waited for the rest of the group to shuffle in, a panicked thought flashed across my mind. Had I silenced my cell phone? And if I had, had I also turned it onto airplane mode so my decrepit iPhone battery wouldn't deplete itself searching for a none to be had at camp cell signal? Reaching for my purse, my eye caught a notification on my home screen, a calendar alert set for 9:00 am on February 12th..."Remember your baptism, and be thankful." And a peace that passes understanding, a peace that drinks deeply from the waters of grace and joy, a peace that I needed in that moment settled over my soul.

On that day in 1989, I was baptized. I was claimed by grace. I was named a beloved child of God.

Thirty years later on that day, the Board of Ordained Ministry recommended me to be ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church at the 2019 Memphis Annual Conference.

I am overwhelmed by the love and grace that had been shown to me. I am overjoyed to join my friends and colleagues in ministry in full connection, upon the approval and vote of the clergy session in June. I am humbled 

that others believe and have confidence in me. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have only arrived at this moment with the love, support, encouragement, and intention poured into me by so many throughout my life. 

I am most overcome by the awareness that those words prayed over me at my baptism are both blooming and being planted in my heart again, "Amanda Laura-Leigh, the Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ."

So thank you, community, for walking and praying with me this far. May we continue together to follow where the Spirit leads.