Providing Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
An encouraging reflection upon the growing presence of Christ in our world, in the YMCA, in the Church, even when it seems that things are on the way down…
What can we learn from Christians who have been living in a town that’s been on its way down for 500 years?
What can we learn from a church that is legendary for its hoping, holiness, and love for all God’s people while also enduring hardships of poverty, minority status, Imperial brutality, and religious cynicism?
What can we learn from a YMCA that invented basketball as a way to build up hope, holiness and a love for all God’s people?
What can we learn about joining Jesus in answering his prayer for unity while at the same time experiencing the spreading darkness of despair, decadence, and destruction?
I’d like to think we can still learn so much more!
Enjoy this encouraging sermon, rooted in trust that “the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.”
Waynedale UM Church / 8.21.2022 / Colossians 1:1-8 :: “Hope, Holiness and Love For All God’s People” / Click here to view sermon – Start 27:00 End 54:00 /
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.
In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.
You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.”
“The Christian can never regard himself as being on the winning side, nor can he look on with pleasure while everyone else goes to perdition; should he do so, he would be lacking in the Spirit of Christ, and by that very fact he would cease to be a Christian”
Looking back now, reflecting on the infamy of January 6, 2021, like many American citizens I find the times to be disturbing – and asking myself: what are better ways for Christians to participate in politics (as it really is in America) and engage in public service (health, education, justice, arts, etc.) in a way that is faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ but not duped by political/economic ideologies which are marked by insidious violence and justifying the means (usually in a downward, mimetic, rivalrous, spiral)?
Is there a role for virtue and character?
Common bonds of solidarity and neighborliness?
Sacrificial love and healing truth?
Taking the high road and defusing antagonisms?
What does it look like to humbly imitate Christ in this politically toxic era?
And how does the “C” in the YMCA grow healthier and stronger amidst these contentious and all too often embarrassing public actions by Christians in the public square?
Rather than go mute or get louder, who can be a helpful guide for Christians in the YMCA who want to authentically live out their faith publicly as caring servant-leaders for all?
This book by Jacques Ellul – The Presence of the Kingdom – is a modern classic; it was forged in the fires of oppression in World War 2 by one who participated in the French Resistance, an atheist who converted to Christ, a brilliant lawyer and small-town pastor and activist, there is much that Ellul can teach YMCA leaders on ways to put their faith into practice amidst turbulent times.
The following comments and quotes are adapted from a post I originally published on a personal blog in February 2013; I find that it still rings true almost a decade later…
“In focusing more and more on what Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God, there is some new imagination required for what that would look like in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Especially when being a pastor in a community results in potential political activity.
I am disillusioned with our political reality in the USA, disappointed in how popular Christianity has aligned itself with politics in order to protect their assets, their power, their position, and their rights.
There is within me an instinctive repulsion to pastors and politics; there has to be a better alternative to posturing and press statements?
How to think about being a pastor and involved in politics without ending up as a pawn or a populist?
In these days of searching and listening, I turn again to Jacques Ellul.
I found the following paragraphs from The Presence of the Kingdom to be immensely challenging and provoking to me as I seek confirmation of God’s leading in my life’s work.
My interests and skills and calling have lead me into social and political issues; in my vocation as a pastor, as a Christian leader, there is some inner questioning whether this direction is appropriate.
In seeking some kind of justification or spiritual foundation for what I sense to be right, knowing there is no utopia, Ellul is most helpful – what I quote below from him has been formative for me, challenging, and hopeful:
Jacques Ellul (b. January 6, 1912 / d. May 19, 1994)
“The Christian can never regard himself as being on the winning side, nor can he look on with pleasure while everyone else goes to perdition; should he do so, he would be lacking in the Spirit of Christ, and by that very fact he would cease to be a Christian.
Bound up with the lives of other men (be economic and sociological laws, and also by the will of God), he cannot accept the view that they will always remain in their anguish and their disorder, victims of tyranny and overwork, buoyed up only by a hope which seems unfounded.
Thus he must plunge into social and political problems in order to have an influence on the world, not in the hope of making a paradise, but simply in order to make it tolerable – not in order to diminish the opposition between this world and the Kingdom of God, but simply in order to modify the opposition between the disorder of this world and the order of preservation that God wills for it – not in order to ‘bring in’ the Kingdom of God, but in order that the gospel may be proclaimed, that all men may really hear the good news of salvation, through the death and resurrection of Christ.
Thus there are three directions in which the Christian ought to action the world:
First – starting from the point at which God has revealed to him the truth about the human person, he must try to discover the social and political conditions in which this person can live and develop in accordance with God’s order.
Second – this person will develop within a certain framework which God has ordained for him.
This is the order of preservation, without which man lacks his true setting.
Man is not absolutely free in this sphere, any more than he is free in the physical or biological domain.
There are certain limits which he cannot overstep without danger to the society to which he belongs.
Thus the Christian must work, in order that the will of God may be incarnated in actual institutions and organisms.
Third – this order of preservation will have meaning only if it is directed towards the proclamation of salvation.
Therefore, social and political institutions need to be ‘open’: that is, they must not claim to be all, or absolutes.
Thus they must be constituted in such a way that they do not prevent man from hearing the Word of God.
The Christian must be ceaselessly on the watch – intelligent and alert – to see that this ‘order’ is preserved.
But, in doing so, he will find that he is confronted by two possible errors.
The one error consists in believing that by constant progress in this order we shall attain the Kingdom of God.
It is enough to remind ourselves of the Book of Revelation, or of Matthew 24, to condemn this attitude.
The other error arises out of the conviction that by achieving certain reforms we shall have reached this order which God wills.
In reality all solutions – all economic, political, and other achievements – are temporary.
At no moment can the Christian believe either in their perfection or in their permanence.
They are always vitiated by the sin which infects them, by the setting in which they take place.
Thus the Christian is constantly obliged to reiterate the claims of God, to reestablish this God-willed order, in presence of an order that constantly tends towards disorder.
In consequence of the claims which God is always making on the world the Christian finds himself, by that very fact, involved in a state of permanent revolution.
Even when the institutions, the laws, the reforms which he has advocated have been achieved, even if society is reorganized according to his suggestions, he still has to be in opposition, he still must require more, for the claim of God is as infinite as His forgiveness.
Thus the Christian is called to question unceasingly all that man calls progress, discovery, facts, established results, reality, etc.
He can never be satisfied with all this human labor, transcended, or replaced by something else.
In his judgment he is guided by the Holy Spirit – he is making an essentially revolutionary act.
If the Christian is not being revolutionary, then in some way or another he has been unfaithful to his calling in the world.”
Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, pgs 35-37
Which quote sticks with you as illuminating or provocative or hopeful?
What insight does it provide to you on how Christian’s can engage publicly – as people of faith – while leading and serving amidst the tumult?
I asked Vanessa from the Huntington Y to share a few words about her experience with Paul; she helps support Christian Emphasis in her YMCA, and this included supporting Bishop Hirschy in his volunteer chaplain ministry there.
Today was the funeral of our highly respected and beloved denominational leader Bishop Paul Hirschy.
A quiet leader, thoughtful, patient, faithful to the Lord and fruitful in his Christian ministry.
For me as a pastor and son of a pastor in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Paul was an ever present leader in my life – his unfailing warm-hearted kindness, generous smile and genuine attentiveness always made me feel welcome and included.
His ministry extended beyond his term as bishop, in the many years since then he served the local church providing pastoral care to members in need.
When I left the local church ministry for work in the YMCA as a pastor, my new tasks included connecting with local clergy who felt called to volunteer on the Y as a chaplain.
Imagine my delight when I discover Bishop Paul doing just that in the Huntington YMCA! How blessed that Y is to have a chaplain like Paul, and what a legacy for our UB ministers to have one of our own loving, caring and serving in the community with such a big heart and patient spirit.
May we have more pastors like Paul, more volunteer chaplains like him to strengthen the presence of Christ in our Y.
I asked Vanessa from the Huntington Y to share a few words about her experience with Paul; she helps support Christian Emphasis in her YMCA, and this included supporting Bishop Hirschy in his volunteer chaplain ministry there.
Here is Vanessa’s loving remembrance:
“His name was Paul Hirschy.
Former Bishop Paul E. Hirschy, 75, passed away December 1, 2021, after a long battle with cancer.
Paul was a faithful chaplain at the YMCA of Huntington County.
He would set aside a couple hours a week to invest in the lives of community members. He was full of God’s grace and shined ever so bright even in the darkest of days.
Paul would walk into the front doors of the YMCA and spread his contagious smile to the ladies at the front desk.
Then, he would turn the corner to record his time and place his VOLUNTEER name tag on.
Paul was the epitome of a volunteer.
He showed up, he served, he loved, and cared for all that stepped into his path.
Paul would usually find his way to the table.
The table where gentlemen and ladies would gather for a cup of morning joe and reminisce about the good ole days.
Eventually the relationships grew to move the discussion from the good ole days to the current not so good days of health scares and lost loved ones.
Paul never skipped a beat to listen and turn their attention to Jesus in prayer or through that light he so proudly presented.
The YMCA brought Paul on to serve our members, which he did well, not knowing the impact he would have on them as a leadership staff.
It did not matter the season for Paul, whether dark or bright, he always inquired how he could pray for us as a staff.
We knew whatever Paul was saying to Jesus was going to be heard and answered ten-fold.
Paul seemed to have a seat right next to our Heavenly Father even when his body was still on earth.
Paul cared for God’s people and inspired each of us every week.
After months of chemo, Paul came in to serve the YMCA not knowing how much longer he had.
Even in this time, Paul focused on us, he had faith and knew God’s plan was best and his peaceful presence said it all.
Paul was the most gentle, Christ centered man I know.
I have no doubt he is sitting by God as I write this and worshiping with his whole spirit; without pain, without suffering.
May our memories of Paul always be a place to visit his tender heart and produce a smile of joy upon our faces.”
Written by Vanessa Macias-Hannie, Director of Healthy Living at the Parkview Huntington Family YMCA, Indiana
More about Paul…
Paul graduated from Huntington University in 1968, and that year began ten years of pastoral ministry–initially in Convoy, Ohio, followed by nine years at Park UB church in Bluffton, Ind.
He managed the denominational printshop 1978-1981, and then was elected by General Conference to the first of five terms as Director of Church Services at the UB national office.
In 2001, Paul was elected bishop of the US National Conference. He served in that role until 2005.
He worked the next seven years as a development officer at Huntington University, and since 2012 has been associate pastor at College Park UB church in Huntington.
On October 1, 2021, Huntington University awarded Paul the Distinguished Alumni Citation, which recognizes exceptional service over an extended period of time. “Service” is, indeed, what Paul is most known for—a man with a true servant’s heart.
