Simplifying the United Methodist Brand with Love, Grace and Forgiveness with Bishop Julius Trimble and David Johns

Brad Miller: 00:00:00

We're talking about being full of ourselves since we

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are full ourselves when we think about how we our agenda, our

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personal focus, you know, our own personal agenda, and how

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we've always done it, you know, this type of thing, you know,

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we've always done it this way. And maybe this is a time for

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even ramping up even more innovation and creativity and

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bringing in different voices, whether it be younger people, or

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people from the business world, for instance, anything else that

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can give us a different perspective, because so much of

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what we've done just hasn't been as effective as we would like to

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have been busy. What do you think about that thinking about

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innovation and creativity in the midst

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:00:37

of a global pandemic? There someone

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who said, I don't know who originally said this, but we

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should never let a good crisis go to waste, that I think

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innovation and add adaptability are really a part of the

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outgrowth of being in a global pandemic. So this is a season

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for us not just to wait for whatever the future holds, but

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really to be creators of a better future and

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unapologetically pursuit, pursue beloved community in the

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process,

Brad Miller: 00:01:11

I want to bring it right kind of around, kind of

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bring the conversation around now to a a biblical theological

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perspective for us to focus for the last minute or two of our

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conversation, that's when it put if, for whatever reason is laid

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on my heart, these three words that we need to be talking about

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a little bit more, we're talking about our branding, and about

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the diversity in the church and the division of the church and

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how we can kind of get back to the main thing. And those three

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words are grace, and love and forgiveness, and forgive grace,

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grace, love and forgiveness. And I just like for you to, for you,

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two gentlemen, to speak on those permitted in terms of how you

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would experience those in terms of this conversation we're

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having about branding, and keeping the main thing, the main

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thing, Dave, how about you?

Unknown: 00:01:54

That's a great start. Because I've spent the last

Unknown: 00:01:57

couple of weeks sharing with people, my reinterpretation of

Unknown: 00:02:01

the word love, maybe liking the great version, where it's where

Unknown: 00:02:05

I can, I'm concerned about someone else's, I am me, we've

Unknown: 00:02:09

become very much about me and a little less about you. And how

Unknown: 00:02:12

do I get around that and to be reminded that grace is this

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notion, I am willing to extend to you the same thing, I want to

Unknown: 00:02:21

extend it to me again, it's funny we are we are good at

Unknown: 00:02:24

skipping our own mistakes, but sometimes extremely good at

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identifying someone else's. And Grace, this whole note, I share

Unknown: 00:02:32

the story that, you know, we recently went through, and one

Unknown: 00:02:35

of the one of the meetings, I spend a lot of meetings about

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the Samaritan story. And how the Samaritan without hesitation,

Unknown: 00:02:42

saw a need and addressed it. It wasn't about anything other than

Unknown: 00:02:46

putting that person first. And someone Someone asked me about

Unknown: 00:02:48

it. And I kidded him, I said, well, because they said, Well,

Unknown: 00:02:50

Dave, don't do we need to have relationship. I said

Unknown: 00:02:52

relationships great in the context. But if you're hurting

Unknown: 00:02:55

out on the side of the street, what do you want somebody to

Unknown: 00:02:58

come? Do? You want somebody come extend grace to you, you don't

Unknown: 00:03:01

need an interrogation. They don't even know why you're

Unknown: 00:03:03

there. It's what what can they do? So that's, that's the love

Unknown: 00:03:07

of Christ to us. And the grace is extended to us by Christ. And

Unknown: 00:03:10

all he's asking is that we extend the same to others. And

Unknown: 00:03:13

so sometimes it just takes a little self reflection to

Unknown: 00:03:16

recognize where we're still imperfect souls. I mean, I

Unknown: 00:03:20

examine myself and I still make a lot of mistakes. There are

Unknown: 00:03:22

times I wish I could grab words and pull them back. And I can't

Unknown: 00:03:26

always do it. And I expect people around me to to grant me

Unknown: 00:03:29

that forgiveness. And in that same vein, I've got to extend

Unknown: 00:03:32

that same thought to others, because Christ extended that to

Unknown: 00:03:35

me, and is trying to help me understand how to do that.

Unknown: 00:03:38

Because in my world, I was in a tough cutthroat, corporate

Unknown: 00:03:42

world. And, and I've got to learn a little bit more about

Unknown: 00:03:45

how to truly be the face of Christ so that people see grace

Unknown: 00:03:50

in me, they see the love of God in me, and they see forgiveness

Unknown: 00:03:53

in me. And if I expect people to do it for me, I'm going to do

Unknown: 00:03:55

that for others. And that's the tough part of those three words.

Unknown: 00:03:57

I think they're great three words to challenge us. Can we do

Unknown: 00:04:01

that? Can we see example. We've done that because we expect that

Unknown: 00:04:04

Brad, we expect that to be extended to us. How do we extend

Unknown: 00:04:07

that to others, Bishop grace,

Brad Miller: 00:04:09

love and forgiveness.

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:04:10

Grace is I really like that word grace.

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:04:13

Often I I've heard it years ago and said, My wife and I said,

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:04:18

God loves you. There's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes

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we will say and we love you. There's nothing you can do about

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it. So we've received grace. And we can be instruments of grace

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by loving people without asking for as David said, application

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or aspiration. I use it. I use the illustration. I see if I can

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use my spiritual imagination. Got it. God has a printing press

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in heaven. And God is printing name tags, with everybody's name

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on it. And on the back of your name tag is stamp. God loves

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you. There's nothing you can do about it. And it says brand or

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when it says David or it says Cindy or it says Korean or is

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this Candice? Whatever. It's says every single person has a

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:02

name, a name tag that God has printed that says you are loved.

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:06

And there's nothing that doesn't require action of Congress or

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conference to change that. The prophet Jeremiah said, what God

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:16

spoke to the prophet Jeremiah, and said, I love you with an

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:20

everlasting love. So that's what I see. See graces, David's done

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:25

a great job of talking about love, and you know, love, mate,

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love and love and flesh, love that love in the flesh and the

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sense of, you have to really see it take action, love as an

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:36

action word. Forgiveness is something I think that we have

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:39

neglected bred. And we really need to recover. And I thank God

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for you bringing that up. We, we pray it as a wrote prayer, in

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our religious ritual, you know, the Our Father who art in

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heaven, you know, forgive us our trespasses, and some

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translations, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:05:58

debtors, or forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive others

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:06:02

who have trespass against us, or Jesus tells us that we ought to

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:06:06

be forgiving, not just forgiving and loving, not just those whom

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we like, or whom we love, but even our enemies. And that's

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:06:15

probably the hard work, the hard work of reconciliation is the is

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:06:19

the outgrowth of true forgiveness.

Brad Miller: 00:06:21

I think the forgiveness pieces is a huge

Brad Miller: 00:06:23

piece of this, because I think the reality is, there's a lot of

Brad Miller: 00:06:26

hurt a lot of hurt feelings out there right now in our church,

Brad Miller: 00:06:29

and, man. And in order to get reconciliation, it's going to

Brad Miller: 00:06:33

take the hard work of forgiveness, asking for

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forgiveness, and being contrite in many ways, and we can do it.

Brad Miller: 00:06:40

That's what our tradition is. But it ain't easy isn't it ain't

Brad Miller: 00:06:43

easy, and it's hard to teach that as well. I want to bring up

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to one more thing I want to kind of conclude on this thought,

Brad Miller: 00:06:49

David, when jugglin, big, big trouble. And I talk oftentimes,

Brad Miller: 00:06:52

we had the theme of Bishop trembles theme is be encouraged.

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So I'd like to ask you to share what is it you are encouraged

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about right now, given all this conversation we've had, then my

Brad Miller: 00:07:03

ask Vishal trembled to pray us out here. So David, what are you

Brad Miller: 00:07:06

encouraged?

Unknown: 00:07:06

I'm encouraged, because when, when I can go and talk to

Unknown: 00:07:11

people and a little bit smaller setting, and have a little bit

Unknown: 00:07:15

more intimate time, I see lots of hope out there. And I talk

Unknown: 00:07:20

about how as we have the help of the Holy Spirit, we also have a

Unknown: 00:07:24

tremendous amount of help from our sisters and brothers in

Unknown: 00:07:26

Christ. You know, it takes us that when I can break through

Unknown: 00:07:29

that other shell of these other things getting in people's way,

Unknown: 00:07:33

and you can see smiles on faces that Yeah, yeah, we can get back

Unknown: 00:07:36

to that again. And you go and you visit a food pantry in some

Unknown: 00:07:39

little town, you see the people there and are coming together

Unknown: 00:07:42

and pull that together. I just see all those things out there

Unknown: 00:07:45

and say to myself, it's there, we just got to keep working our

Unknown: 00:07:49

way through it not forget that it's there. And not forget that

Unknown: 00:07:52

those voices are out there. And the sometimes not be overwhelmed

Unknown: 00:07:55

by maybe some of the loud voices that are overly influencing me,

Unknown: 00:07:58

and paying attention to some of the more quiet voices out there.

Unknown: 00:08:01

That in truly our dedicated mission in ministry. And I can't

Unknown: 00:08:05

forget about them either. And so they encouraged me, I just, I

Unknown: 00:08:08

just love having those names and walking out of there hearing the

Unknown: 00:08:11

stories of the things that are going on the people they've

Unknown: 00:08:13

reached, and what they're doing. So Brad, I'm not discouraged at

Unknown: 00:08:17

all. I'm a little discouraged how little work I'm getting done

Unknown: 00:08:20

in that vein, because I've got a job there. I'm not discouraged

Unknown: 00:08:23

by what's out there.

Brad Miller: 00:08:23

When I think of it I love that about the listening

Brad Miller: 00:08:26

to the stories and this and the small, quiet voices, a bishop

Brad Miller: 00:08:30

any closing comments you want to make and then perhaps a prayer

Brad Miller: 00:08:32

for us?

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:33

Most certainly I want to thank Brad

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:35

and and David for this rich and robust conversation. And for

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:40

those who may hear this podcast, we certainly want to send a

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:44

blessing to all of the people who received his podcast may

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:47

indeed be a blessing to you. For the Bible says in First

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:51

Corinthians, We are one body even though we are many members.

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:55

But just as the body is one and has many members, and all the

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:08:58

members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with

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Christ. And we often refer to in terms of the church as the body

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:06

of Christ. So I think that's a that's a serious mantle to

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:11

carry. If we are to reflect, reflect the love and personhood

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:16

and power of Jesus Christ. We really must demonstrate those

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:21

three words you ended us with grace, love and forgiveness. Let

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:25

us pray. Oh God of grace and God of love and God, forgiveness.

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:30

Pour your power of healing upon our world, upon your world, upon

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:36

our neighbors, and upon our nations. Oh God, we pray, indeed

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:41

that those who are lonely will find a friend in you and maybe

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:46

find a friend in hearing this word of encouragement. You love

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:50

us with an everlasting love. And we are thankful to be recipients

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:09:55

of that grace. Now give us the strength and power To be

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:10:00

instruments of Your grace, so that we might indeed love

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:10:04

others, even the stranger in our midst. It is in Jesus name we

Bishop Julius Trimble: 00:10:09

pray, amen.

Brad Miller: 00:10:10

Amen. Our guest today on the United Methodist

Brad Miller: 00:10:13

people podcast with Reverend Dr. Brad Miller, Indiana area Bishop

Brad Miller: 00:10:17

Julius treble in Indiana lately Indiana conference lay leader,

Brad Miller: 00:10:21

David Johns. Thank you for joining us.