Hello spiritual travelers. Last Sunday I mentioned the compass that I received in a dream about a way to simplify what we are trying to do together to grow in our faith. Now that I am at North Bethesda, I remembered Twila Paris singing a song about True North, so I went and looked for the lyrics. I will quote from them some here. The words of the song talk about our efforts and our getting lost or confused or distracted on our journey and needing a point to aim for, or a reference point to keep from getting too lost. Hence in the navigation world, the true north.
What occurred to me in my dream was the compass points as it related to being a True "North" Bethesda UMC and finding a great deal of similarity between compass points and the invitation that God gives us when we look at the beginning of the church back in the days following Jesus ascension back to heaven. Those points can be found in Acts 2: 42-47 which I will share here.
"The believers devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. All the believers were united and shared everything. they would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. They praised God and demonstrated God's goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved." (Common English Bible)
So in response to Twila's song about our challenges "we lost our bearings, following our own mind we left conviction behind. Fear of the future ..hiding the hope that would last. How did we ever wander so far and where do we go from here?" True North. With the help of God, seen in the beauty of the world God created, we would be drawn back to the main focus of True North.
The Compass has 4 main points, N. E. S. W. and I began to put the two together, or my dream did. W would stand for Worship God, it's in the discovery of the creation (in the song and in St. Paul's writing) that we recover our sense of Awe and worshipping God enables us to show our gratitude and to seek God's help.
N would stand for Nourish the Soul, in the Acts passage, they devoted themselves to the apostle's teachings, nourishing our souls is the study, meditation, learning of God's help for our lives that will truly guide us in how we ought to live in this world we find ourselves in. We can provide places for nourishment in Sunday School and Bible Study and groups for learning.
E would stand for Embrace your Neighbor, and this is so important. The second great Commandment that Jesus emphasized after the "W" and Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, is the "E" love your neighbor as yourself. Love both the neighbor in the church and the neighbor outside the church. So much of scripture teaches us to live with one another, like the Acts verse, all the believers were united. In the early church it was pretty tricky since it included both Jews and Gentiles who were loving God and learning to love one another.
S would stand for Share and Serve. We will make a difference in our lives and in our world when we share our praise in worship, share our minds in study and encouraging each other, when we share our love for one another, supporting and helping each other any way we can. The essential message of Jesus is about serving as well. We remember he said we would be servants to one another, just as he was, when he washed the disciples feet. "I have given you an example to follow" he said. (John 13)
Share gives us a chance to show our gratitude to God for the help and guidance in the midst of the storms of life. Share is giving back to God a portion of our financial resources, so we can help others to find the help of God. Share is giving to God our energy, our prayers, our skills and experiences to help others. The points of the compass W N E S = Worship God, Nourish your Soul, Embrace your Neighbor, and Share & Serve, will help us to focus on doing what God asks of us. And it can be a logo or focal point we can easily remember. One of our NB members is helping to design the logo for us. We will be able to use it lot's of places like bumper stickers, Golf & T-shirts, Decals, seat cushions, coffee mugs and cups, the possibilities are endless.
The main point is to help us remember who we are, needing a compass to head in the right direction. And the compass points will help us remember to work on a balanced spiritual life. We need to Worship, we need to nourish our souls, we need to love our neighbors, we need to share and serve. Most of us are good at one of these, or maybe two of them. To be a truly well balanced and healthy spiritual person, we need all four of them. Let's ask God to help us improve in the areas we need the help. Maybe more worship time, maybe more study times, maybe more fellowship time, maybe more generosity to accomplish what the church needs. All part of an exciting adventure with God's leading and pointing in the right direction.
Come and join the journey. Come and grow in your faith. Come and help us to make a difference in the lives of others, for Jesus' sake. It will be awesome.
Blessings
Pastor Jeff
Friday, July 25, 2014
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Looking Back & Looking Forward
Today I'm standing between last week and next week. I'm looking back at what has happened so far, both in the message, and the events in the life of the church. And I'm looking forward to see what great things God has in mind fo us as we move into the tomorrows God has given us.
Last Sunday I spoke about the Welcoming Father in the parable Jesus taught we normally call the Prodigal Son. The point of the parable was Jesus talking about how welcoming the father is in this story to both of his sons. One nearly wrecked the family, causing a third of the property to be liquidated and then taken with him to the far country, where he squandered it on parties and a variety of poor investments, and he had the desire to go home in the midst of his worst nightmares, feeding the pigs and looking at their left over slop for his only source of food.
The welcoming father also urged the older son to come in and join the party, and that might be more like many of us. We do have a hard time with how much mercy and grace God can show and we wonder why our good behaviour and dependable faithfulness is not more justly rewarded. Why did the wanderer get the fatted calf in celebration instead of our duty and service to the family being properly rewarded. That was his question to the father and the parable only states that God celebrates the recoveries and invites us all to be in the recovery business, regardless of our place in the story.
There is a whole lot more to this older brother than we sometimess realize. We consider ourselves the hero of most of Jesus' stories and the prodigal, our coming back, sounds more popular than the older brother's staying home. But most of us, especially those in the church, are much more like the older brother. We used to be in a majority, church going was like an American tradition and most of us did, sometime or other. Now it seems that the prodigal brother, the not so deeply invested in the church family, is in the majority. And when they do try to come home, we look at them and scoff, or we want them to become just like us, like our day of worship, follow our dress codes, enjoy our musical styles, remember the stories we are most familiar with, and become a good church going person as quickly as possible.
Jesus knew we were thinking like this, so he told the story. He wants us to be more open to the welome side of the family. The going out on your own isn't working out as well as we were led to believe. We are seeing it looks better at home. And this can be a good thing for the future of the church. This can be a good thing for getting new people to come and experience God's warmth, love and acceptance. This can be a good thing for welcoming people to the party. But, we have to be welcoming, warm, hospitable, overlooking the sense of the pig farm, that some of our prodigals bring with them. We have to be genuine in our realizing that Jesus is in the welcome home, and we can help you in your faith development and faith soul journey here among us. Welcome Home.
Now to looking forward, this Sunday the message is don't be anxious, be thinking about the Kingdom and the will of God above your worries. And we will look at ways to elevate the God priority in our lives, as we look at Matthew 6: 25-34. That's the Gospel of Matthew, the sixth chapter, verses 25-34. It's the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.
Blessings on your turning toward home, and finding God for your life
Pastor Jeff
Last Sunday I spoke about the Welcoming Father in the parable Jesus taught we normally call the Prodigal Son. The point of the parable was Jesus talking about how welcoming the father is in this story to both of his sons. One nearly wrecked the family, causing a third of the property to be liquidated and then taken with him to the far country, where he squandered it on parties and a variety of poor investments, and he had the desire to go home in the midst of his worst nightmares, feeding the pigs and looking at their left over slop for his only source of food.
The welcoming father also urged the older son to come in and join the party, and that might be more like many of us. We do have a hard time with how much mercy and grace God can show and we wonder why our good behaviour and dependable faithfulness is not more justly rewarded. Why did the wanderer get the fatted calf in celebration instead of our duty and service to the family being properly rewarded. That was his question to the father and the parable only states that God celebrates the recoveries and invites us all to be in the recovery business, regardless of our place in the story.
There is a whole lot more to this older brother than we sometimess realize. We consider ourselves the hero of most of Jesus' stories and the prodigal, our coming back, sounds more popular than the older brother's staying home. But most of us, especially those in the church, are much more like the older brother. We used to be in a majority, church going was like an American tradition and most of us did, sometime or other. Now it seems that the prodigal brother, the not so deeply invested in the church family, is in the majority. And when they do try to come home, we look at them and scoff, or we want them to become just like us, like our day of worship, follow our dress codes, enjoy our musical styles, remember the stories we are most familiar with, and become a good church going person as quickly as possible.
Jesus knew we were thinking like this, so he told the story. He wants us to be more open to the welome side of the family. The going out on your own isn't working out as well as we were led to believe. We are seeing it looks better at home. And this can be a good thing for the future of the church. This can be a good thing for getting new people to come and experience God's warmth, love and acceptance. This can be a good thing for welcoming people to the party. But, we have to be welcoming, warm, hospitable, overlooking the sense of the pig farm, that some of our prodigals bring with them. We have to be genuine in our realizing that Jesus is in the welcome home, and we can help you in your faith development and faith soul journey here among us. Welcome Home.
Now to looking forward, this Sunday the message is don't be anxious, be thinking about the Kingdom and the will of God above your worries. And we will look at ways to elevate the God priority in our lives, as we look at Matthew 6: 25-34. That's the Gospel of Matthew, the sixth chapter, verses 25-34. It's the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.
Blessings on your turning toward home, and finding God for your life
Pastor Jeff
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Looking for Good News
My first Sunday at the new church went very well. I was extremely nervous about standing up front and leading worship to be familiar to the church, without every having seen what happens there myself. But there is joy in going on a journey when finding someone who has been where you are and can give you some encouragement and some good advice. I had a person give me excellent advice and a cast of characters who knew I was new with them, whispered help along the way. Thank you all for sharing in what we all should do, help people on their spiritual journey by sharing what we have already learned.
A funny moment, in my own mind anyway, was before I said a word in front of the whole church to begin the service and welcome people, someone stepped into the pulpit ahead of me and removed the microphone from the pulpit. Here is what I was thinking at that moment. Oh great! I haven't said a word and they are taking the microphone away from me. It was funny to me, and maybe helped me to relax a moment before beginning. Now I knew I had a microphone on me, but the sight of their moving the microphone out of the pulpit just struck me as something to tell people about my first Sunday. We had some trouble with my microphone too, the gain wasn't up as much as it should have been. There are some things you just don't know until you are actually there. I think next week will go better.
I have really enjoyed the meet and greet the new pastor groups this week. I preached on Sunday from Luke's gospel where Jesus is starting his ministry with the reading of the passage from Isaiah 61, that the Spirit of The Lord is upon me to proclaim good news. I thought all of us could be reminded that God wants us to be a source of good news for someone else, especially when they need it. The meet and greet sessions have been good news to me. I've learned a lot about those who attend. We have shared who we are, what we do or did during the day, and what brought us to this church and why did we stay. Almost everyone testifies to the fact that this church made them feel very welcomed and accepted into the fellowship of the congregation right away. I'm seeing that for myself as well.
I've met Charter Members, who were the first to join the church back when it was just starting in 1956. I've met those who have just come on board recently. I've met people from South Africa, and Zambia and places like Arizona and Mississippi and Washington DC. Some of the people who attend here worked in other parts of the world for a while as well. This is a very talented and dynamic congregation. They are truly looking forward to continuing to be so as we look to find ways to invite and include new people in our congregation. And we are like many other congregations, looking for ways to invite and welcome younger generations of our neighbors.
These meet and greet times will help me get to know the story of the people of the church so that my preaching and teaching and writing will be in tuned to the ongoing stories already here, and they are working. Thank you for your kind welcome to Elaine and I.
This week I'm going to share the story of the Welcoming Father, often callled the Prodigal Son, to remind us of how welcoming to others we can be. I welcome you to join us. Summer time worship is at 10 am. And there is coffee and juice and conversations to follow. Come and Join us.
Blessings
Pastor Jeff
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Packing and Unpacking
Moving from place to place always seems to involve packing up at the old place and unpacking at the new place and that's what I'm in the middle of doing now. Unpacking and trying to decide where to put stuff so I can find it. I have a new configuration, a new set of book shelves to fill and trying to decide what is the most logical place for books is a major part of the unpacking.
I have a system for going out, and it works pretty well at the other end too, but it's still hard. I use old calendars with blank spaces for the days of the month to identify which books are going into which box. I used April May and June in an old Williamsburg VA calendar. So box one was A1 for April first block. I would right the category of books that went into the box on the page square, then I would make a little address label sticker on the box of what was in it, and mark the box on several sides with the letter and number of this box.
At the other end, I would look for the box with the books I needed first. In this case it's M16, for May 16 where I put my hymnal and worship planning resources. The pile is six boxes high and about six rows out from the wall. Of course the wall side boxes can't be gotten to and I know now that's where M16 is hiding. Hopefully I'll find it soon. I may have to move the boxes around like that old slide the squares up and down and back and forth to recover the picture. Or it looks like a rubic's cube and I have to figure a way to slide the wall side to the open side, a box at a time.
The Conference took care of moving my office from one church to this one, but I couldn't keep track of the books on and off the truck. The crew was a great one, and they came early were done in less than an hour, I was ready for them, and they unloaded the books at the other end with just as much efficiency. I was much smoother than I remember. I'll have to tell you that story....
Ten years ago, the Bishop decided to move me before the church was finished being expanded. During construction the church office and my office were in an old construction trailer, which was kind of exciting, but my books were put in a tractor trailer truck parked on the lot while we were in the construction phase. When it came time to move my office to the new church, we had to dig through the tractor trailer to find my books, and some of them had been rained on and snow covered while still in their boxes. The tractor trailer was not water tight apparently, and that's why it was rented as storage units, I guess. Anyway, unloading those books at the other end proved to be a challenge. So this recent move was much better.
Now I'm working on where they go on the new shelves.
I don't think Moses had this problem when he saw the burning bush and was told to go back to Egypt, all he got to take was his rod he used for shepherding, that had been turned into a snake to make a point. Abraham took along a bunch of stuff, including his nephew Lot, when he was asked to venture toward the promised land. Jonah was thrown overboard, swallowed by a big fish and barfed up on the beach before he went to Nineveh, so he didn't have much to pack, so the adventure of going to a place God calls us to go to is always a unique event.
I'm in day two, unpacking books and meeting new people and having conversations with my staff and trying to get used to new surroundings. May God help us in the adventure. And Sunday is coming.....
Pastor Jeff
I have a system for going out, and it works pretty well at the other end too, but it's still hard. I use old calendars with blank spaces for the days of the month to identify which books are going into which box. I used April May and June in an old Williamsburg VA calendar. So box one was A1 for April first block. I would right the category of books that went into the box on the page square, then I would make a little address label sticker on the box of what was in it, and mark the box on several sides with the letter and number of this box.
At the other end, I would look for the box with the books I needed first. In this case it's M16, for May 16 where I put my hymnal and worship planning resources. The pile is six boxes high and about six rows out from the wall. Of course the wall side boxes can't be gotten to and I know now that's where M16 is hiding. Hopefully I'll find it soon. I may have to move the boxes around like that old slide the squares up and down and back and forth to recover the picture. Or it looks like a rubic's cube and I have to figure a way to slide the wall side to the open side, a box at a time.
The Conference took care of moving my office from one church to this one, but I couldn't keep track of the books on and off the truck. The crew was a great one, and they came early were done in less than an hour, I was ready for them, and they unloaded the books at the other end with just as much efficiency. I was much smoother than I remember. I'll have to tell you that story....
Ten years ago, the Bishop decided to move me before the church was finished being expanded. During construction the church office and my office were in an old construction trailer, which was kind of exciting, but my books were put in a tractor trailer truck parked on the lot while we were in the construction phase. When it came time to move my office to the new church, we had to dig through the tractor trailer to find my books, and some of them had been rained on and snow covered while still in their boxes. The tractor trailer was not water tight apparently, and that's why it was rented as storage units, I guess. Anyway, unloading those books at the other end proved to be a challenge. So this recent move was much better.
Now I'm working on where they go on the new shelves.
I don't think Moses had this problem when he saw the burning bush and was told to go back to Egypt, all he got to take was his rod he used for shepherding, that had been turned into a snake to make a point. Abraham took along a bunch of stuff, including his nephew Lot, when he was asked to venture toward the promised land. Jonah was thrown overboard, swallowed by a big fish and barfed up on the beach before he went to Nineveh, so he didn't have much to pack, so the adventure of going to a place God calls us to go to is always a unique event.
I'm in day two, unpacking books and meeting new people and having conversations with my staff and trying to get used to new surroundings. May God help us in the adventure. And Sunday is coming.....
Pastor Jeff
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