resolutions

Making Your World Bigger: A Challenge

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Making Your World Bigger

January 2025

by John Partridge


Several times this past year, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes. In his book, The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain once said,

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Despite not traveling anywhere notable this year, I was reminded of this on several occasions when I heard, or read, people self-righteously offering opinions about people they had never met or places that they had never visited. But whenever that happens, I remember a trip that I took to Honduras, courtesy of the United States Army. At the time, I was in my early twenties and still in college, or maybe just barely out of college. And, while we didn’t interact much with the local population, that trip forever changed my views on poverty, the third world, and world missions.

Reading about the poor is one thing. But watching a family of five being fed on one soldier’s uneaten lunch is a different experience entirely. It was common for children to approach us and beg for handouts, but the order of their requests was almost always the same. First, they would beg for food, second for candy, and third for pencils. The first two made sense, but we were puzzled by the third until we asked the civil affairs guys that arrived shortly before our departure. They explained that the government schools provided teachers but not school supplies. And as such, many children could not go to school because their families could not afford luxuries… like pencils.

Again, while I didn’t do any traveling, I felt similar emotions this year when I heard some of the opinions expressed about immigrants and immigration, the poor, the homeless, and others about whom political commentators, and internet bloggers like to pontificate. Of course, it’s okay for people to disagree, but often in these sorts of things, while the speakers and writers have lots of opinions, few of them have any actual experience with the people they are talking about.

And so, with these things in mind, I want to offer a challenge for the new year. I’ve never really liked the concept of making resolutions and since so few people keep their resolutions, please don’t think that this is what I am suggesting. Instead, in the spirit of Mark Twain, I encourage you to make your world bigger. I want you to challenge your opinions and preconceived notions about the people around you.

Instead of simply assuming things about the people around you, I encourage you to commit time (do not just resolve) weekly or monthly, to meeting, interacting, and helping those people. Rather than assuming that the poor and the homeless are in that situation because they are lazy, I encourage you to volunteer at a food pantry, at our bread ministry, Tuesday dinner, at the Clothed in Righteousness ministry outreach on Main Street, or someplace similar. Again, don’t just show up once for an hour to make yourself feel good, but commit to being there often enough to build relationships with the people there, learn about them, and hear their stories.

Instead of believing some of the nonsense that is spewed on television and the internet about immigrants and immigration, commit to volunteering weekly, or monthly, with ministries or agencies that work with immigrants. Again, spend enough time there to build relationships, make friends, and know them as people rather than as the caricatures that are often depicted in the media.

Of course, my invitation isn’t exclusive to these few examples. It could apply to any number of other groups of people from Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts) to university students and many others. You could take the time to visit our friends at Red Bird mission in the Kentucky mountains and meet some of our friends there, or travel with a group from our East Ohio Conference to Liberia, or Mexico, or any one of our other overseas missions.

While Mark Twain’s quote about travel is one of my favorites, I think that a part of it is wrong.  Yes, I believe that travel can be fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, but not by itself. I know too many people who are prejudiced, bigoted, and narrow minded despite having traveled extensively. The key is not just the act of traveling; it is in having conversations and building relationships during your travels. The change inside of yourself occurs when you can no longer refer to Africans, or the poor, the homeless, immigrants, or any other group of people without thinking about the names and faces of the friends that you have made.   

And that is why my challenge for 2025 is to get out of your comfort zone and commit to spending an hour a week, or even just an hour a month, volunteering and being present with people that you might have previously thought of only as a group. This is a challenge to confront your biases, or just to get out of the house and expand your horizons. Because whenever you spend enough time with people to build relationships…

…that is when your world gets bigger.

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

The Incredible Power of Small

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It seems impossible, but there is incredible power in small things.

As we go about our business, as we watch the news, and as we experience life, most of us have accepted the reality that those things that are big will be the winners.  Billionaires will win out over millionaires, a 300-pound football linebacker is a good bet in a barfight, the state will win over a township in a legal dispute, and so on.  Face it, when David faces Goliath, Goliath usually wins.

But increasingly, I am being reminded of the enormous power of the small.

We know this almost unconsciously, but we are prone to ignore it in our conscious decision making.  Here’s what I mean:  Elephants and whales are huge, but there aren’t huge piles of dead elephants or whales anywhere.  Why? Because as soon as the large animals die, the small animals get to work.  Lions, sharks and other predators take their turn, then buzzards, fish, and smaller creatures, and then, beetles and tiny fishes, and finally bacteria and other microscopic creatures set to work.  And in this system, the web of life, each time the creatures get smaller, they grow greater in numbers.  And while a handful of lions may feast on the carcass of a dead elephant, the number of bacteria, fungi, and other microscopic creatures number in the millions and tens of millions.  We take them all for granted, but without them our planet would be overrun with dead things.

Change is like that too.

Sometimes change seems impossible.  The task is simply too hard, or too big, or too expensive, and so change is left untried.

But small is powerful.

When great ships set sail from one continent to another, the most important person on the ship is the navigator.  Over and over, history demonstrates that a tiny error in navigation, an error of one degree, or even a fraction of a degree, multiplied by a voyage of a hundred or a thousand miles, and the ship arrives far from its intended destination.  In our era, as scientists consider how to protect our planet from potentially devastating, city-sized asteroids that may come our way in the future, the answer isn’t enormous rockets with powerful nuclear weapons, but early detection.  If we can discover the danger early enough, small rockets, with tiny nudges, can redirect planet killing asteroids by a fraction, even hundredths, or thousandths of a degree and, over the course of millions of miles, the asteroid never even comes close to us.

As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, we often think of what we can do to make the next year better than the last.  But change is intimidating.  Our problems seem to be too big, too powerful, too expensive, or too difficult.

But remember the incredible power of the small.

Losing weight can seem impossible, but what about a pound a week?  Even a half a pound per week means a loss of twenty-five pounds by this time next year.  Drastic changes aren’t needed.  A half a pound per week can be done, gradually, by eating just a little bit less and walking a little more each day and even then, you might have to work up to it a little at a time.  Making big changes is hard, but don’t be afraid to make a little change today, and then a little more next month.

Saving for retirement sounds impossible.  But don’t let the size of the goal scare you from starting small.  Maybe you can’t afford to save hundreds of dollars a month.  But can you, occasionally, give up your morning coffee?  Or pack a lunch instead of going out to eat?  Giving up a stop for a ($2.00) coffee, twenty days each month and banking that, produces almost $50,000 over thirty years at 7 percent interest.  Packing your lunch two days each week and saving another $20 pushes that number to almost $150,000.  That still won’t get you to a comfortable retirement, but one small change can motivate you to make another, and then another, and so on.

Growing our church and adding a hundred new members sounds impossible.  But, like we saw in the previous examples, it’s our focus on the big things that often prevents us from seeing the power of the small things.  No, we can’t plan a single event, or offer any kind of training that will allow us to instantly add a hundred people on Sunday morning.  But, could you find the time to invite one person to have coffee with you this month?  Could you join a new club, or commit to making one new friend in the next year?  How hard would it be to do something nice for a neighbor or someone you know?  Could you make some hot soup for a neighbor when they’re sick?  There are thousands of ways that we can invest ourselves in the lives of the people around us.

But those small acts, done consistently, are incredibly powerful.

If each member of our church reaches just one person this year, we will touch the lives of more than a hundred people in deep and meaningful ways.  And if only ten percent of those people choose to join our church, we will add ten new families.

Most likely, none of us will run for a national political office, or write a best-seller, or have millions of followers on social media.  But just the same, we have the power to transform our church… even change the world.

We have at our disposal the incredible power of the small.

Join me.

Make this year, a year of slow and steady progress.

We can change the world.

One cup of coffee at a time.

 

_____________

Blessings,

Pastor John

 

 

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A Deeper New Year

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As we approach the New Year, many in our culture have a tradition of making resolutions.  We make a list of things that we hope to do better or ways in which we hope to improve ourselves.  We resolve to lose weight, go back to school, read that book we always meant to read, exercise more and host of other things.  As we approach this New Year however, I hope you will consider one thing more.
As we enter this New Year, I hope you will join me in deepening our relationship with Jesus.  That may be a new idea for some, you may not really grasp what I am trying to say, and that’s okay, I’ll explain.  Jesus desires to be friends with us at the deepest levels of our heart, he is said to be the friend that sticks closer than a brother and we are, in fact, adopted as brothers and sisters of Jesus.  Too often, our relationship with Jesus looks more like that of a casual acquaintance.  We know who they are, we recognize them on the street and we nod and wave when we see them.  The problem is that Jesus wants more than that.  Jesus wants us to know him, really know him so that we can be “closer than a brother.” 
How well do you know your best friend?  You spend time with them.  You spend a lot of time with them.  You can finish each other’s sentences.  You know what food they like, what makes them happy, or sad, or angry.  Without calling them to ask, you can often tell others just what they will think about a certain subject or how they will react to a particular situation.  Jesus wants us to know him like that.  He doesn’t just want us to know who he is in the way we know a casual acquaintance, but he wants us to have a real, deep, meaningful relationship with him.
But how do we do that?  Obviously, building a relationship like that isn’t something that happens overnight.  You didn’t get to know all about your best friend in a single day, a month, or even a year but spent time, regularly, building your friendship together.  Building your relationship with Jesus will be the same.  It will take time and it will take some commitment.  This year I hope that you will join me in making a commitment to building and deepening your relationship with Jesus.  Spend time in church but also make time to pray, to read the Bible, or attend a Bible study.  Do any or all of these things, do something more than you have done before, and you will begin to know Jesus better.
Jesus wants to be more than the acquaintance that you wave at in church once a week. 
  
         He wants more.    
                      He wants your relationship to go deeper.   
                                         Will you join me in this grand adventure?