wfn.org | Father-son team talks about relationships

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June 4, 2003 News media contact: Kathy Gilbert7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
  10-71B{313}

A UMNS Feature
By Rich Peck*

Two United Methodist pastors are traveling around the United States, talking
to men about the "blunders and blessings" that often shape relationships
between fathers and sons.

The Rev. James Buskirk, former pastor of the 8,600-member First United
Methodist Church in Tulsa, Okla., and his son, the Rev. Chris Buskirk,
founding pastor of Abiding Harvest United Methodist Church in Tulsa, are
leading "Sons of the Father" convocations.

Noting that men are too frequently disconnected from their own families, the
Commission on United Methodist Men is sponsoring the conferences in each of
the denomination's five U.S. jurisdictions. The Nashville, Tenn.,-based
agency has hosted two three-day assemblies and plans to conduct four more.
Each event is slightly different, but all of them feature the father and son
team. 

Explaining the importance of the events, Chris observes that the
"relationships of father and son are most often a mixed bag of blunders and
blessings, of life-strengthening affirmation and heart-wrenching
disappointments. But few relationships have more leverage in a man's life
than the one he has either as a son or as a father." 

In the events, the two pastors share insights of how a relationship with God
as our Father can influence anyone's relationship as son or father.

Chris points out a staggering accusation made by Jesus: "You are of your
father, the devil" (John 8:44).

"Surely he meant those words for someone other than those who had believed in
him," he says. "Think again. Choosing the fathering influence in our lives
was an issue for which Jesus accommodated no delusions." 

Chris urges men not to "let the fathering you receive or the father legacy
you leave be limited merely to the father of your history. Choose a heavenly
heritage. Shape a new legacy.
 
"It is a sobering challenge to realize that the legacy that will shape my
children is not what I say I believe, but what I show I believe," he says.
 
James notes that everyone in attendance was a son and some were fathers.
"None of us is a perfect father, and none of us had a perfect father," he
says. 

"But God can use us to be good fathers," he continues. The pastor and former
professor of evangelism at United Methodist-related Candler School of
Theology notes that "in God, Jesus' perfect father, and Joseph, Jesus' father
in the carpenter shop, Jesus gives us some great clues about what it means to
be good fathers."  

Speaking to the men, James quotes Mark 1:11, in which Jesus' heavenly father
says, "You are my son and I am proud of you." Then James asks, "Have you
heard that from your father? Has your son heard that from you?"
 
In a dialogical sermon, James and Chris compare fathering to a mason building
a wall, brick upon brick. "Every child grows strong when affirmation,
acceptance, appreciation, affection, accountability and relational
availability are built into them. Our Father's legacy can reinforce gaps in
any wall and strengthen any crooked or broken brick."
 
They remind men that "the point of calling God 'Father' is not so we model
our relationship with God based on our relationship with our earthly dads,
but so we will model our relationship with God based on the relationship
Jesus had with the Father."  

The South Central Jurisdiction "Sons of the Father" conference will be July
11-13 in Fort Worth, Texas; the North Central Jurisdiction conference will be
July 25-27 in Naperville, Ill.; and the Western Jurisdiction conferences will
be Aug. 1-3 in Portland, Ore., and Oct. 10-12 in Ontario, Calif. The
Northeastern and Southeastern jurisdiction events have already been held.

For more information, write to P.O. Box 340006, Nashville, TN 37203-0006;
call (615) 340-7145; or go to www.gcumm.org.
# # #
*Peck is communications consultant for the churchwide Commission on United
Methodist Men in Nashville, Tenn.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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