 Greetings!
Employment in a church is unique in so many ways, not the least of which is the lag in hiring someone and the beginning of the work. The last time you heard from me was October 1—doesn’t that seem like a long time ago? It sure does for me. I’m super excited, not only about starting my full-time employment, but also worshipping with you on December 10 and 24. Since I was with you, I’ve had some bumps in the road, finished out my Interim Ministry in Columbus, gone into contract on a home in Wilson, and started packing. While it seems like October 1 was a long time ago, January 1, my move date, looms over our house. This is our first out-of-state move, and we are learning the ins-and-outs. I’m anticipating it being the last one, at least for a good long time. My wish for you is that this Christmas season will be one filled with joy and peace for you and your loved ones. I get all the ‘feels’ at Christmas—it is a bittersweet season, full of goodness and generosity, but also memories of days and folks gone by. My intention is to always pay attention to how my heart is feeling, and it runs the gamut! It will be a different Christmas for me this year, as I will be moving away from close family members in Ohio in 2024. They have some opinions about that! Through it all, Advent is a season of anticipation and expectation. In a typical Advent, we are anticipating and expecting a Savior to be born among us. While I’m expecting and anticipating that, my biggest anticipation is beginning our shared ministry in January, at last! Peace, Scott
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 The day I walked out of Christmount when I retired in February, 2019, after 29 years and 9 months of being on staff, I said simply (and mysteriously), "So long, and thanks for all the fish!" It was a reference to the dolphins leaving earth as it was being destroyed to put a space highway through that section of the Milky Way, and an utterly ridiculous way to walk out - but I didn't care: I wanted it to be memorable to me. Some of you, I'm sure, are Hitchhiker fans!
While it was utter nonsense, our Executive Director got it: what in the world can you say in a situation like that, where people you had worked with for years were kind of sad (thank God!) and watching 30 years of history and ministry walking out the door? Since I've used it once, I won't do it again (as tempting as it is - everyone needs a trademark, huh?); but it does lead me to my final message to you. Renae and I have loved being at First Christian Church, Wilson. I arrived almost 50 years after my first college visit, and a little prior to my entering Atlantic Christian College in August, 1972. I found that very fitting as I began a major interim ministry; I committed to almost a year; we're now at the end of 18 months! This church was the only church I visited my freshman year, and I only came once; but UCCF (United Campus Christian Fellowship) met here monthly, and some of you fed us regularly. Some of you I have known me my entire ministerial life - from camps and youth ministry in the Coastal Plains District. Renae came in only knowing a few of you, although some of you recall when she came down to lead a CWF retreat back in the early 2000's, I think (she was sick with a cold and somehow managed to get through it, including singing!); she met some folks who remembered her on our occasional trips to church when we would visit Todd. I'm glad that Renae was able to find Wilson a good place to be for her art. She sold some of her "greeting cards" at the Selkie (and is still doing that online through their web site), and sold some of her devotional books downtown. She met some folks in the art community and will have those friendships for the rest of her life! She's also a person who walks almost daily, and even though some Wilsonians decided to try and drive on the sidewalks or run red lights to run her over, she managed to survive! But many of you have reached out to her to include her in your lives, and we are both appreciative of that. Everyone has been telling me what a great job I did here. But you know who did the really good job? You. You didn't wait for me to decide on a direction to take you: you were already headed that way! You've grabbed the bull by the horns over and over again. I didn't have to help set things up for special occasions (I did help move a few tables a couple of times, but that's about it!). You greeted visitors with your warmth, joy, and love. You've been kind to the occasional homeless person who walks in off the street. You've begun a relationship with St. James Christian Church, working to do local outreach. You've supported food drives, Hope Station and other helping agencies around town, Casey and the choirs and the entire music ministry, Margaret Hearne School, the Pride Festival, the concerts in the winter and summer, the community Hymn Sing at Forest Hills Baptist Church, and been a light in general to the community here. I didn't do that, I didn't suggest it, I didn't start it: you did it all. My prayer for you is that you will welcome Scott and Beth and that your ministry together will be even stronger. There's a lot of creativity in this place, so I can't wait to see how that all plays out. There's untapped energy waiting to be utilized. There are new people willing to step forward into leadership. Affectionately, jamie The first text message Rev. Scott Scheiber (pronounced Shee’–ber) made immediately after the congregation enthusiastically voted Sunday to call him as senior minister at First Christian was not to his son, Will, a senior at Michigan State. It was to his new local Realtor to place an offer on a Wilson home. Will was second. Wife, Beth, and daughter, Cate, a sophomore at Belmont Abbey College, heard the news and the cheers of his appointment firsthand at the spirited reception following worship. Scott will start his ministry here in January. To help supplement the schedule of visiting ministers who will fill the pulpit when Rev. Jamie Brame concludes his interim ministry at the end of the month, Scott will return on Sunday, December 10, and Christmas Eve to lead services. Scott’s visit on Sunday was his final step in the search and call process, a public audition in worship to fill the senior minister position vacant since February 2022. In the opening remarks of his sermon, Scott talked about the mystery of his call to us and our call to him. “Your search for a pastor began … right when my need for a new renewal in my life and a new congregation began,” he said. “I feel like we’ve been led by the Spirit to this day.” Scott also addressed the congregation’s continuous prayer for a transformational pastor. “I am not sure I am that,” he said. “What I am is a pastor that is willing to walk with you and wait with you for the transformational God we all worship. “I believe that transformation can and does happen. I believe that God will show a fresh vision for this church … at the right time. “It will come as long as our eyes are open looking for new possibilities that the Spirit will surely and inevitably bring to this doorstep. And when that vision arrives, I am someone who will commit to it.” Scott’s search and call papers appeared in Search Committee Chair Christy Proctor’s email on August 10, another of many profiles provided by Regional Minister Valerie Melvin during the 17-month search. On August 23, the committee got to know Scott during a two-hour ZOOM interview as he answered questions about specific experiences in ministry, worship, Christian education, pastoral care, mission outreach, church growth, sermon preparation and delivery, stewardship, extending a welcoming embrace to all and transformational behavior on his part and ours. After the interview, the committee unanimously voted to invite Scott and his wife, Beth, to Wilson for an official visit. On Wednesday, September 13, they arrived. Across three busy days, Scott shared meals with the committee, toured the church campus and the YMCA, talked with community leaders, met with the elders and with Minister of Music Casey Childers and experienced a chauffeured excursion through Wilson. Beth accompanied Scott to appointments as her busy marketing career allowed. On Friday evening, September 15, the committee gathered with Scott in the church parlor for a second two-hour interview. With what he’d learned about First Christian and the community during his visit as the basis for his answers, he spoke again about transformational leadership, teaching and preaching, administration and planning, open and affirming behavior, pastoral care and mission work. After the interview, with clarity of perfect awareness, the committee extended to Scott an invitation to preach on World Communion Sunday, certain that this congregation was called to Scott and he to us. Scott earned a Batchelor of Arts in English Language and Literature, specializing in creative writing, from Ohio University in 1994 and a Master of Divinity from Methodist Theological School in Ohio in 2011, specializing in church leadership. He was ordained by the United Church of Christ in 2011. In 1989, the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) approved a historic partnership of full communion proclaiming mutual recognition of their sacraments and ordained ministry. By this agreement, Scott is considered an ordained minister within our denomination. Scott is currently concluding a yearlong intentional interim ministry at Northwest Christian Church in Upper Arlington, Ohio. He served as pastor at Highwater United Church of Christ in Newark, Ohio, from 2011 to 2022 and as Adjunct Instructor in Field Education for Methodist Theological School in Ohio from 2017 to 2019. Scott is an avid Ohio State University fan. Search Committee members included Chair Christy Proctor, Trevor Dildy, Patsy Ferrell, Kendra Howell, Clayton Bardin, Beth Williams and Bob Kendall. Board Chair Theresa Mathis and Casey Childers served as ex officio members. It's been good to celebrate the baptisms of five of our young people!
Holy Week and Easter were wonderful. Lent was the busiest I've had in ages. While I know the church is not as busy at it could be, I'd have to say that you continue to surprise and please me by being more "member-driven" than "minister-driven," not waiting for me to decide where we're going! That's important. A member-driven church means that you are not waiting for your next pastor to come in and tell you what to do. It means that you are being a fully-mature church rather than a church that is in a holding pattern. It means that when a new pastor arrives, you'll be able to inform him/ her about what the church is about rather than saying, "We've been sitting here waiting for someone to come and get us going again." Jesus told the parable of the talents. You might remember it (Matthew 25: 14 - 30). The "master" decided to take a trip, so he called his three most trusted workers together and gave each of them some money to look after. Two of them invested the money and increased its value, while one just held onto it so he wouldn't risk losing it. For me, the similarity of this story to our situation is that most of you have invested your time and energy in some way that your faith and involvement have grown. Very few have just sat back and waited for "whoever is next." If you remember the end of the parable, when the master returned, only one of the servants got in trouble: the one who hadn't done anything. The church of today will be the church of tomorrow only if it is a member-driven church. We'll never be the church we were even 10 years ago, much less 50 years or more ago. That's not a bad thing. The world isn't what it was 10 years ago, and would be unrecognizable 50 or more years back! Let's face it: as recently as 25 years ago, "Google" was not even a noun, much less a verb! The changes that will be coming in the next five years will be amazing, unthinkable to some, but necessary if we are to do more than just survive. The church of Jesus Christ has never been about just surviving (those churches that have are, in many cases, barely recognizable as churches today or not in existence at all!). Those that adapt to the modern world don't die: they take the best of the world outside (computers, live streaming, and big screens in the sanctuary) and use them to make both strangers and members feel more at home in worship and during the week. The future isn't coming, it's already here (somebody else said that, and they were absolutely correct). The best way we can meet that future and not just be dragged along by it is to worship honestly, to love each other, and to offer compassion and service to the world in which we live. -jamie #fccwilson #fccwilsonnc #ncdisciples #ccdoc #greenchalice #greenchalicecongregation #talents #openandinclusive #openandinclusivechurch #openandinclusivechurchfamily  It's Lent.
Many of you lifelong Disciples know that until the late 60's, Disciples didn't think much of Lent, unless we had Roman Catholic friends and coworkers who discussed it around us. My friend, John Gardner, was a serious Catholic who took all of the major holy days and seasons quite seriously, so each winter I got a dose of John "sermonizing" about why we should all observe Lent. When I reached the 9th grade, though, we had a new pastor who worked hard to bring us into line with the rest of the Church and teach us about Lent as a spiritual practice. Since that time, I have rarely missed out on this holy time. I tend not to think of it as work, but as an opportunity to practice, privately, a more strenuous spiritual discipline. Sometimes, I fail miserably (like whenever I convince myself in midFebruary that a 24-hour fast once a week is a thing I can do!); at other times, I seem to breeze through praying all the Psalms twice or more during the 40-days! Often, though, I forget the first rule of Lent: talk to God about what and why you are doing what you're doing! The success of Jesus' time in the wilderness (if it can be called "success") was that he kept God right in front of him. That's more the point than anything else: Lent should bring us closer to God, not help us rack up self-esteem points by what we are able to do on our own. Observances that we can do: daily Bible reading (learning not to study the Bible only, but to converse with it, asking our questions and listening and reading for answers); daily meditation (sitting silently and letting ourselves be aware of being surrounded by God); giving up foods that maybe aren't that good for us anyway (and praying every time we start to waver in our discipline); fasting (again, be careful about this!), even if it's only a partial fast (maybe only water and crackers or a piece of bread for lunch); keeping up with social issues - hunger, racism, war, violence, environmental changes, etc. - and offering prayers or educating ourselves about the issue or issues; being kinder to people as you wander around Wilson doing your daily chores. You get the idea! Whatever you and I do, though, let's be sure and take it to God daily. That's the only reason for Lent, really: to draw us closer to the One who loves us, and everyone, unconditionally! -jamie  A word from the interim minister
Lent was always an enigma to me in my childhood: Disciples didn't mention it much. Suddenly, in the late 1960's, Lent became a thing! Luckily, I had a great Roman Catholic friend, John (think of a religious Sheldon Cooper from "Big Bang Theory"!), who calmly explained to me how to do it right. He took it in profound seriousness, as though the foundations of the church would crumble if he didn't select the exact thing God had selected for him to "give up" during the 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter. I always told Mother I was giving up spinach, or beets, or green bean casseroles, or Sunday School, or homework: she recommended my giving up dessert, chocolate, and other sugary treats. It's no wonder it took me several years to truly embrace Lenten observances. If you are a regular listener to my sermons, you know that when I was in Dublin, GA, as a pastor right after seminary, I was the Sunday School teacher for a group of 9 - 11 yearolds, and that they were the most brilliant children who ever walked the face of the earth (according to me, and their parents). When I was teaching them about how to have a "holy Lent," I talked about giving up something important to them (chocolate, desserts, soft drinks, etc.; I turned into my parents, it seems!). I've mentioned Saint Mandy before: she asked the question, "Can you take something on instead?" "What do you mean?" I responded. "You know, like can you do something good for someone every day, or once a week go visit someone homebound or sick, or collect money to give to the poor. That kind of thing?" Those kids sure made ministry easy! Give up, or take on: do something this Lent. Good news: while I was living for a short time at a monastery, I learned that Sundays are "feast days:" what that means is that on Sundays, you ALWAYS celebrate the Resurrection, which means each week, you get a one-day break from your Lenten sacrifice (thank you once again, Jesus!). Here are a few suggestions for a holy Lent (each one of these is a separate activity rather than several to do each day!): read a couple of Psalms each day; read the four Gospels; practice five minutes of silent sitting in the presence of God; have a regular devotional time; pray the prayer list from the previous Sunday; journal; make a prayer list and pray it daily; do a partial fast (skip one meal each day, if your health is good); do a partial fast once a week; take on a good deed to do each week. You get the idea: Lent is more than a reduction in chocolate consumption! For more ideas, check out these web sites (I do not endorse any of these; you can do your own search. But I saw some good ideas in each of these): Lenten Ideas 1 Lenten Ideas 2 May God bless your intentions this Lent. - jamie #ccdoc #ncdisciples #christianchurch #christianchurchdisciplesofchrist #lent #journey #wilderness #40days #openandinclusive #allarewelcome  Happy New Year!
It's time to turn to New Year's resolutions. What kind of goals are you setting? Health and fitness? Spiritual? Relationship? Work? There are so many kinds, aren't there? Mine always include how many books I'm going to read, how many Divine Offices I will pray, how many Jesus Prayers I'll say each day, how much I will meditate, how much I will write, and yes, how much weight I will (no I won't!) lose! Some of these are mundane, some are vital to who I am. You can try to guess which ones are in which category. The spiritual goals are the best, because they are farther -reaching than the more mundane ones. I think of reading as a spiritual exercise (although I admit that I will read several collections of ghost stories just for fun in among all the other reading I do). I try to set a percentage of spiritual books and non-fiction books in amongst the others, but that's me. Too many years spent among scholars and monks, I think, has warped me in some peculiar ways, but they are ways that I pretty much like. I encourage people to set goals that are interesting and won't fall by the wayside. Give some consideration to serious and growth-inspiring resolutions these coming weeks. Think about them. Write them down. Print them out. Put them somewhere you can see them. Maybe you could resolve to listen to a Psalm every day on the way to work. Maybe find a serious spiritual podcast and listen to it a couple of times a week. You could resolve to spend five minutes three times a week in total silence, just following your breathing and listening for God. How about going for a walk outdoors somewhere and watch how the natural world changes through the year? There are so many good ones! Whatever you do, don't beat yourself up for failures. When you break one, re-adjust your resolutions. Save something for Lent! Let's agree to make 2023 a year of personal growth. Your growth might be infectious, and inspire some of the rest of us to follow your lead! We're all in this together! God bless your 2023, - jamie First Christian Wilson Interim Minister  We are deep into autumn, arguably my favorite time of year. Technically, Christmas happens in winter, but Advent is really a fall season that ends about the time that winter arrives. Doesn't matter to me: once the Halloween decorations hit the yards, I'm ready for lights, cold temps, and Christmas carols starting two months out! For those of you who will tire of Christmas quickly, I understand. Sometimes, it's too much.
But when I combine the sacred and the secular things that go with the season, I'm a junkie: there's never enough for me. It's not Christmas presents that get me going. It's the challenge of discovering again the meanings of all these special times that hit us from mid-October until Epiphany in early January. The liturgical year winds down with what some call "Christ the King Sunday" just before Thanksgiving, then revs up with Advent the Sunday after Thanksgiving. "Happy New (liturgical) Year" will be on my lips on Advent One, causing some people to grab their phones to see if by some chance they slept through December. Luckily, my reputation as a weird person allows me a certain amount of leeway when it comes to the strange things I bring to faith. I like marching to a different drummer, though: it challenges me to try to figure out how to be taken seriously while offering to people, those who also hear their own drum, a kindred spirit, one who won't always understand them but will accept them, no matter what, because we know, don't we? Christians are all supposed to be oddballs. We don't march to anyone's tune but God's. We listen for that tune, we hope to get our marching orders from it. Our "orders" are simply to love God, to love each other, and to love the people and the world that is all around us: NO EXCEPTIONS! In a time and in a nation that is full of people trying to separate "us" from "them," Christians have a message: THERE IS NO "THEM!" Shout it from the mountaintops and from the shorelines, in the stadiums and at the voting places: we are Christians, and we are, like God, in love with everyone. The Prince of Peace is coming, and at the end of this coming month, we will begin to get ready. November worship begins with All Saints Day, when we will remember our congregational brothers and sisters who entered their eternal rest this past year and joined all the saints of all time. We will be inspired to think about and share our Thanksgiving Offering for support of Disciples Higher Education ministries. Some of us will donate food for those who won't have a Thanksgiving meal without us. We will give thanks by sharing our blood at the next Red Cross Blood Drive. The church will be decorated for Advent. Youth and Adults will continue with fellowship groups and Christian education. And we will begin planning for the Great Feast which we will serve to the community on Christmas Day. Why wouldn't I be as excited as a child? This is our faith, this is who we are: First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Wilson, North Carolina! - jamie  Our Season of Faith is well under way now, and we are moving through our Age of Aquarius theme, which may seem a little at odds with Christian faith. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. One of the things people struggle with in a pluralistic society such as ours is how much do we take from the culture at large and how much do we leave alone?
George Washington Carver says this: "If you love it enough, anything will talk with you." In our faith, I paraphrase it this way: If you love God enough, everything will speak to you." What I mean by that is, God is not limited to just the Bible, or just to a church building, or to just our own narrow ways of looking at anything. The most open-minded of us are still narrow in our views when we compare ourselves to God! I believe, with all my heart, mind, and strength, that God will stop at nothing to get our attention and to draw us closer. Beautiful nature speaks to most of us, yet very rarely do cross-shaped things show up to us on most days. A flower fairly screams at us that God is trying to get our attention, but flowers never say, "I believe in Jesus." Lots of us like to go to the beach, or to a river or stream, or to the mountains; others love to look at the night sky; still others look at moving clouds and see all kinds of messages there. God hasn't called us to agree with each other: Disciples of Christ are notorious in our varied ways of interpreting scripture. What we ARE called to do is love one another. And God. And the world. Our Season of Faith challenges us to go deeper. It is being presented to us in songs that sometimes disturb us, in images that don't contain an ounce of a picture of Jesus in them, in sermons and prayers that don't seem quite to fit in to our usual mode, and even the way we dress (well, the way I dress!) may be a little out of sync with "normal." God loves us, and nothing can separate us from that love! Never fear: God is walking through this season of faith with us! - jamie  I am a felon. The origin word for felon in old French is fel, which means evil. By archaic definition, I am someone with an undermining hand of dark corruption. That’s bad enough. In medical terms, a felon is an infection that can lead to horrible swelling and intense, throbbing pain. That’s awful. I am a felon. I have been accused of high crimes against the Divine. At a church, when I was in my late 20’s, from questions that I raised (Huh? Really?) came allegations that I did not, in fact, know God. And never had. I traveled occasionally on I-40 to Greensboro for work. During the hours I was on the highway, a group concerned about my soul prayed for me to have an I-40 conversion so profound that my eyes would be opened and that I’d be born again before I got home. I always disappointed them and their three-hour prayers. In the manner they’d hoped, a light never shone, and a voice never called my name. And they gave up. I remained an infection. And I changed churches. I am a felon. At my next stop, I just sat in my pew quietly Sunday after Sunday. And I smiled, and I greeted. And I wondered about the condition of my affliction. Did anyone notice? It wasn’t long before I was judged just the right person (He’s so nice and smart.) to teach adult Sunday School. Now I was in my early 30’s. The class wanted to study a Christian’s approach to death and dying. We used the classic study about the five stages of grief by Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross as our guide. One Sunday, a representative from Hospice visited class at my invitation to talk about palliative care for those with a terminal illness. By the end of the day, I stood before my pastor accused of disavowing the power and possibility of God’s healing miracles. Huh? Really? Convicted and sentenced. I was relieved of my duties. And I left organized church. I am a felon. I decided to keep my infected soul away from church for a while. Absence turned into years. Into my 40’s. Turn the pages past a decade of wanderings, and I found First Christian Church. And somehow, today I find myself an elder among you. I’m praying out loud at the Table, I’m delivering communion and I am writing columns. How did that happen? That’s my most amazing, unanswered question. Maybe I serve only because I’ve been tagged as nice and smart again. (Easily not so true. Ask around.) Maybe there’s another reason, yet unrevealed, for which I am still searching … because I am still infected. Uncured. Huh? Really? So, what’s my point? Here it is. If a faith felon like me can finish five terms as an elder in December, you can begin your first in January. My battle with the hands of dark corruptions continues, and yet I have served, without disqualification, the loving hands of the Creator. There are only six elders now. Once there were twelve. If the call comes with an invitation for you to join the circle, say, “Huh? Really?” And then say, “Yes.” Imagine what God could do with you. I am a felon. Bob Kendall |
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A Disciples of Christ Congregation located in Eastern North Carolina
207 Tarboro Street North | Wilson, NC
Corner of Vance & Tarboro Streets
252-237-4125
Updated: April 16, 2025 | 9:45am
A Disciples of Christ Congregation located in Eastern North Carolina
207 Tarboro Street North | Wilson, NC
Corner of Vance & Tarboro Streets
252-237-4125
Updated: April 16, 2025 | 9:45am
