What's Your Soul Craving

August 17th Sermon podcast

2008-08-24T15:30:00.002-04:00

The Body of Christ 1 Cor 12

2008-08-17T21:29:00.001-04:00

I have a confession to make. I have always struggled with the idea of community, let alone Christian community. I think we’ve all shared a bit about our stories up until now, and the week before I head to seminary is as good as any to share mine. I’ve grown up in the same church and I have been surrounded by loving people. But even though we were loving, we weren’t always real with each other. Which confused me. Then some big things happened in our church and a new pastor came in bringing along his family, who tore me emotionally to shreds. They verbally abused me and sexually harassed me and finally one day I left that church and went to another. Eventually I did come back to my home church, after this pastor and his family left, however, it wasn’t without reservations. So all of that is to say that this little experience deeply impacted me. What I thought was my church home and family had become unsafe. And because we weren’t really all that honest with one another about our pain, I wasn’t able to tell anyone about how I was abused. My entire perception of community and relationships had been shattered and I retreated into a shell, avoiding getting close to anyone.
Of course a few people did get close, here and there. But I still didn’t understand community. To me it seemed more like an ideal instead of a reality. I have this really amazing friend in my life who I have grown close to over the past two and a half years. We share a lot of intimate thing with one another, but I still wasn’t able to call us a community. Not until I re-examined 1 Cor 12. Verses 21-26 describe what community is to a T. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need for you’. On the contrary, the members of the body seem that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members we treat with great respect, whereas the more respectable members don’t need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior members., that there may be no dissension amongst the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one members suffers, all suffer together, and if one member is honored, all rejoice with it.” We have been raised in a culture that tells us to be independent, self-sufficient, and non-emotional. And brothers and sisters, this is such a lie. And it’s why we have such a hard time getting our minds wrapped around this idea of community.
We cannot fathom community because we refuse to think that we need others. We’ve been told that we need to achieve everything on our own and claw our way to the top, not acknowledging the costs. But here Paul is telling us that we have no right to say to anyone that we don’t need them. No! We need one another to support each other, to help each other out. Here’s the thing, God put this huge task in front of the Church, to go and make disciples of all of the nations baptizing them in the name of the Triune God. I’m sorry, but you can’t do that alone. You need others to accomplish this. We need to work off of the generations before us and trust the generations after us to work towards the great commission, while fully being the body of Christ now with our brothers and sisters, depending upon one another.
Can I tell you one of the greatest tragedies of the church. Not sharing what we are going through with one another. Can you please explain to me how we are supposed to live out verse 26 about rejoicing and suffering together, if everyone keeps everything to themselves! We are depriving the body! You may be having a really rough day right now. Maybe you just got a diagnosis that you want to keep to yourself. But if you don’t share it how can anyone come beside you and encourage you, pray for you, be your family? Or maybe you just had a baby and are feeling completely overwhelmed! Why not ask for help from one of the wise mothers in the body? The reason we reject sharing our trials and joys is because it requires honesty and humility. The author Lauren Winner wrote in her book Real Sex, "Community doesn't come about simply by having hard, intimate conversations. Having hard, intimate conversations is part of what is possible when people are already opening up their day-to-day lives.". We need to start sharing our day to day lives! Doing life together like a true family! And this may mean asking each other the tough questions. Calling each other out on sins. One of the beauties of community is being able to know someone well enough to challenge them out of sin or complacency and into growth.
And when we share our day to day lives we see each other’s needs and can reach out and meet them. I volunteer at a women’s shelter, and a few months of go, one of our ladies gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. The mother didn’t have any family or husband to support her. In fact, the dad wasn’t even in the picture. And she didn’t have anything but a few outfits for the baby. So I decided to throw her a baby shower. People from the church, none of whom knew this women, donated so much stuff that they were able to help two women! And sadly everyone was shocked by this. Brothers and sisters, we exist as a body, to also support one another! So why aren’t we! Why do we let needs slip by as we live in our own little shell of the world?
Another reason we don’t really understand what it means to be the body of Christ, is because we don’t know where we exactly fit. Being part of a body means that we know ourselves enough to be able to give of ourselves. Have you ever really noticed that giving of yourself is really hard if you don’t know who you are? Even worse, when you don’t know who you are, you easily become jealous of other people. You find yourself wanting the gift or talent that another person has instead of rejoicing in your own gift and sharing it with others. Paul uses this obtuse image of the entire body being an eye or an ear. I don’t know about you, but if I saw a giant eye or ear, I would be pretty freaked out. Yet for some reason, we try to live in this balance between being independent and being just like everyone else. How does that work? Oh that’s right, it doesn’t. God has created you to be unique, but to fit perfectly with everyone else. To be your own bright color in the rainbow. Or to be your own puzzle piece that fits with everyone else to make the picture complete. If you were meant to be a center piece of the puzzle and you desire to become a corner, you aren’t going to fit into the puzzle anymore. What a tragedy this identity crisis that we are going through is!
And the list of dangers of not knowing where we fit grows. I don’t know how many of you have came from a traditional church background, but the church I grew up in was quite large and a lot of volunteers were needed to make everything work. Which is fine. What is not fine, is that the same people always fill the positions even if they aren’t within their gifting because no one would step up and help. There are two huge errors here. First, these people are stealing the opportunity from someone else to live out their gifting. And second, its okay if no one fills the position right away because maybe that will put the pressure on the people who have the gifting in that area to step it up. Our spiritual gifts don’t exist for ourselves, they exist for the greater good of the body.
Obviously we have a long way to go as the church at large to become a body, the family, the intimate community of the body of Christ. But we are slowly but surely getting there. It has been such an inspiration for me to watch you build this alter week after week listing your gifts and talents, what a testament to becoming the body of Christ and a willingness to use your gifts for others. I’ve also have been blessed with a thought that I’ve had since the start of Soul Café, that we are few but we are a family. We truly have become family. We have prayed together. Cried together. Rejoiced together. May we never loose that!
To close I want to share with you a prayer that my friend, prayed for us here at Soul Café,
"Jesus, they may be few and they may be faithful, but if must be you who makes them into a family. Make them into your body; the image and the vision and the actors (and actresses!) of your love in the world. Holy Spirit, be the love flowing through them to all they meet, and be the love that binds them together and draws them to You. And Father, be the one to whom they give all that they do, the one to whom they aim and to whom they strive in everything, their hope and their joy."
Amen.

Everybody's wounded

2008-07-22T20:55:00.000-04:00

Romans 8:12-25 (The Message)
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

12-14So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Invocation:
We gratefully acknowledge that You are the Lord our God and God of our people, the God of all generations. You are the Rock of our life, the Power that shields us in every age. We thank You and sing Your praises: for our lives, which are in Your hand; for our souls, which are in Your keeping; for the signs of Your presence we encounter every day; and for Your wondrous gifts at all times, morning, noon, and night. You are Goodness: Your mercies never end; You are Compassion: Your love will never fail. You have always been our hope. For all these things, O Sovereign God, let Your name be forever exalted and blessed. Amen

Peggy Noonan, writing for The Wall Street Journal, comments on a scene in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down. The movie is about the Battle of the Bakara Market in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993. In this particular scene, the actor Tom Sizemore, in the role of a hard-bitten, hard-core U.S. Army Ranger colonel, is in command of a small convoy of Humvees trying to get back to base with mortar and rocket fire exploding all round. In this violent vortex, the colonel stops the convoy, brings some wounded on board, throws a dead driver out of the driver’s seat and yells at a bleeding sergeant who’s standing in shock nearby:

Colonel: Get into that truck and drive.

Sergeant: But I’m shot, Colonel.

Colonel: Everybody’s shot, get in and drive.

Noonan is struck by those words: “Everybody’s shot.” They suggest a metaphor for life. Everyone has taken a hit, everyone’s been hurt. We’re all walking wounded.
The apostle Paul affirms the same truth. Everyone suffers, but, he adds, of the sufferings “I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times ” (8:18). He even argues “The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs” (8:22) awaiting that day of future redemption.

He wouldn’t have been surprised by news that people were being pummeled, because he himself was forced to endure imprisonments and floggings, beatings and a stoning. “I've been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door time after time. I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times” he reports to his fellow Christians; “and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather. ” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27). (The Message)

When it comes to enduring extreme hardship, Paul is hard-core: He talked the talk and walked the walk.

But, in his letter to the Romans, Paul isn't so much whining about present sufferings as focus on the glory yet to come. Paul isn't interested in complaining about todays pains -instead he's setting his sights on the heavenly kingdom of God.

The key for Paul is that God is at work in the middle of all this suffering, working to bring us to our true destiny, and to free the world itself from its bondage to decay. The whole process is like a birth, one that involves intense pain and moaning and “groaning in labor pains” as a baby is being delivered, but one that has a truly glorious outcome. Sure, “We”re also feeling the birth pangs” he concludes, but it is in hope that we are saved (vv. 22-24).

Our hope is that God is working actively and intensely against the powers of death, even as we get pounded by a variety of forces. God is constantly undermining the ability of evil to separate, alienate, discourage and destroy us, and we hitch our hope to God’s promise of a new heaven and a new earth, where “Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone."(Revelation 21:4)

Theologian Amy Plantinga Pauw invites us to practice resistance to the powers of death and destruction as we hope for this new kingdom. She urges resistance, active resistance, as a sign of our Christian hope. She tells the story of worship services in Latin America, in which protests against unjust deaths often form a part of the liturgy. In worship, the names of the deceased are read off one by one, names of persons who have often died brutally and tragically. At the reading of each name, the congregation exclaims, “Presente!”

These loved ones are not gone, they are “Presente!” Present and accounted for! Their fellow Christians refuse to accept violent death as the last word on them. As part of what Scripture describes as “so great a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), these persons are declared present to the living community of faith.

How is this possible? Only through God’s gift of life, a gift that triumphs over war, abduction, rape, abandonment and even that last and most horrifying enemy — death.

We perform an act of true conviction and endurance and hope whenever we climb to our feet after we have been beaten down. It is an act of true faith to get up and shout, “Presente!” — to make a bold statement of our belief that suffering is never the final word when God is at work in the world.

Let's join together in a Litany of Hope. I will read “The One” and you respond with the bold print.

The One: In our work lives, we’ve been downsized and fired, unappreciated and underpaid, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our relationships, we’ve been hurt and betrayed, neglected and abandoned, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our personal efforts and initiatives, we’ve met with disappointment and failure, rejection and resistance, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our family lives, we’ve experienced disagreement and distance, illness and death, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our own bodies and minds, we’ve been nailed by sickness and disability and deterioration, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our experience of the faith, we’ve suffered doubt and disillusionment and disappointment, but this evening we are
The Many: Presente!

The One: In spite of all these poundings, we stand here this evening, present and accounted for. Together, we are ... say it again

The Many: Presente!

As people who are in community with each other, and in community with the goodness of God, we can count ourselves as children of God and joint heirs of God’s promises, along with Jesus Christ. In fact, Paul points out that we suffer along with Christ “we're certainly going to go through the good times with Him!” (v. 17). Our pains are never completely pointless if they bring us closer to the one who suffered on the cross for the salvation of the world.

Don’t misunderstand. This is not to say that God desires our suffering, or that God somehow enjoys watching us get pummeled and pounded. No, the Lord invites us to join him in working to free the world from its bondage to decay, and to do whatever we can to overcome those forces that can separate, alienate, discourage or destroy us. We may suffer as we do God’s work of justice and reconciliation in this world, but suffering is not going to be the final word when we make it to the Lord’s eternal Eden.

As we do this heavenly work, we are never forced to work alone. The Spirit of God “is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. ” (vv. 26-27). This holy power leads us and guides us, comforts us and abides with us. In fact, it is nothing less than the Spirit of God that constantly reminds us that we are children of God, “We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! ” (v. 17).

We’re heirs — heirs with Christ. Heirs of a world that is constantly being pummeled by the asteroids of economic instability, terrorism, warfare, domestic violence, hunger and disease. Heirs of a world so in need of acts of generosity, love, peace, protection, nourishment and healing.

But that’s not all. We’re also heirs of everlasting life in a kingdom that is out of this world, a heavenly home that God is preparing for us and for all who believe. We may still get pounded here on Earth, but as we’re pelted by hardship we know we can survive, and even thrive, trusting that anything we suffer now is going to be wiped away by the glory to come.
We can work and pray for the healing of this hurting world, always inspired by our vision of the world that is to come.

July 13th sermon podcast

2008-07-14T18:56:00.001-04:00

Life of Prayer- Matthew 6: 5-13

2008-07-14T10:52:00.001-04:00

At the center of our life of devotion to God is prayer. It’s our chief way of communicating with the Holy One. The key word being communication. Sadly, most of our prayer lives don’t look anything like a healthy living relationship. Take a moment to think about your prayer life in terms of how you talk with your friends. Does it mortify you? Because it most certainly mortified me. When I talk with my friends there is a lot of talking back and forth. I feel like I need to apologize with God for my prayer life, because up until recently it didn’t look anything like a healthy conversation. It was me. Talking. A lot. I was like the energizer bunny, talking really fast, but not listening. Prayer is defined as a relationship with God, and folks, if I had to self-score any relationship that was as one-sided as my relationship with God, I would give it a ‘F’.
For some reason so many of us refuse to listen to God. We either quickly run through our list of requests just to throw them out there and make sure God knows what they are because, well, we’re just too busy for anything else. Or we take prayer and reduce it to a model, such as the ACTS method – making sure to have adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication (or requests) in our daily prayers. Once again pause and think about that in comparassion with your other relationships throughout the day. Are your friends and family feeling cared about if you don’t listen to them? Or don’t follow the line of the present conversation because you have a set method you want to follow or are afraid that what you deem needs to be said will be forgotten.
But even not listening, as detrimental as this is, isn’t as overwhelming among Christians today as not believing God will answer prayers. Beth Moore, a noted author, describes what she heard God saying about her prayer life one day when she wrote, “I sensed God saying, ‘My child, you believe me for so little. Who are you trying to keep from looking foolish, Me or you?;” Brothers and sisters are we believing God for so little even today? Are we putting the breaks down on our prayer life because we are afraid to ask God for big things? Do we only pray for those things that we will expect him to answer, or don’t care if he doesn’t answer. Or worse when we pray for something big do we expect God not to answer at all? And friends, that is a tragedy is the words of John Wesley are true when he said, “It seems that God is limited by our prayer life, that he can do nothing for humanity unless someone asks him.”
Because if we look back at the scripture passage for today, Jesus was teaching his disciple to pray a very big prayer. “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” Is not exactly as simple a phrase as it comes off our lips being, more times then not. This is Christ telling God, the Most High King, that his Kingdom was the ultimate will of the disciplines. Not their own plans or agendas. But God’s and God’s alone. And let’s face it, if we don’t know the promises of scripture and can’t identify how God has worked for good for us in the past, saying “Your will be done.” Could be very frightening.
I want to just take some time and break down the Lord’s prayer, line by line. Revealing the relevance and power that it holds. The credit that we all so often don’t give it once the words are memorized.
“Our Father, who are it Heaven, Hallowed be your name.” Even in teaching his disciples how to pray Jesus is being controversial as well as teaching a radical lesson. Jewish culture lesson, God’s name was considered to be so holy that it wasn’t even to be spoken out loud, yet here Jesus is taking the name that wasn’t to be spoken and adding this intimate twist to it, by addressing the Most High God as Father. He made God approachable.
When I think of this statement I immediately think back to the book of Exodus. In Exodus 3:5 God told Moses to take off his sandals because he is standing on Holy Ground. As Moses goes on in verse 13 to ask what God’s name is, God responeds, “I am who I am. That is what you are to tell the Israelites, I AM has sent me.” Here God’s holiness was precieved as a boundary between himself and the Israelites. He was so Holy that he didn’t even have a recognizable name. Yet, in the Lord’s prayer, we find that we can have a deep, close relationship with God, and it doesn’t diminish his holiness as the Israelites had feared for so many years.
“Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” When you read the Gospels you see that there is a tension in Jesus’ talk about the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is present and not yet. All too often we get caught up in the future, and just passively wait for Christ’s return and for him to fix everything. But if are agents of God’s will, we recognize that we have a place in his present kingdom. In the book of Jeremiah, God speaks through the prophet saying “I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness, in the earth for the things I delight in.” If this is the way God loves and if this is what brings him honor, then we should act as he does, pursing justice, righteousness, and mercy fervently. The Church, as the bride of Christ, exists to bring honor to God both now and in the future.
This verse also gives me pause when Christ prays that “Your will be done.” I think very few people pray this and mean it. We pray this, because well we think we should, but really our heart isn’t behind it and we still get upset when things don’t turn out our way. But here’s the thing. God will never do anything that isn’t in our best interest. We need to trust in this. When we let our own will supercede God’s will we are settling for second best. And we shouldn’t want to settle.
Personally in my life, I have been challenged by my prayer partner over the past year to commit my prayer time to God and set aside any agenda I have for prayer. Asking the Spirit to lead me to pray what is on His heart. And some really crazy things have happened quite frequently. I’ll be led to pray for people who I have become disconnected from. I have been led to repent of attitudes that were so hidden in my heart that I would never be able to see them on my own. And I’ve been led to pray for circumstances in the lives of those close to me that I didn’t even know were happening. God’s will has superceded my will and I’m being led by him. It is a beautiful time when my heart meshes with the heart of God.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” God has created us with basic needs. We need food, water, and oxygen. And he sustains us by giving us these things. And this little line should take us back, once again to Exodus, causing us to remember God’s pervision as the Israelites wondered in the wilderness for 40 years. He reigned down Mana, a bread like substance, from Heaven and the Isralites were to collect what they communally needed to sustain them for one day. We’ve become such a glutoness, self-centered society. We hoard food and don’t think about the needs of our neighbors. But notice that the word “our” is used in this phrase instead of “my”, therefore, we should be praying for the provision and sustaining of our neighbors as a way to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
“And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” The power behind this statement is two fold. First it serves as a reminder that we must daily ask God to help us examine our hearts and point out our sins. And we must trust in his forgiveness. For some reasons we tend to cling to guilt of stains that Christ’s blood has long washed away. This examination of our heart also lets us fully give our sins over to Christ and be absolved of them.
The second, and seemingly harder part, of this phrase is probably best explained by Luke in Chapter 6 of his gospel when he says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged, do not condemn, and you will not be condemened. Fortive and you will be forgiven, give, and it will be given to you.” And he goes on to ask “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will they both not fall into the pit? A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighor’s eye but do not notice the plank in your own.” Human nature after the fall is to write off our sins, by pointing out the bigger sins of others. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpant. God is reminding us that we are not to judge others for their wrongs, but to forgive them time and time again. This takes the humility of being able to identitfy that we are fallen and screw up just like the person who has hurt us. We are all in need of forgiveness, because none of us is more holy then another.
“And lead us not to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” Life is not easy. No where, and I really mean no where in the Bible does it say that the life of the Christian will be smooth and free of temptations and struggles. But it does promise that God will protect us. I think this is what it boils down to when Christ tells us that we need to have childlike faith. When I am a child, my life is in the hands of my parents and I trust them fully. I trust them not to lead me across the street when traffic is flowing and there is a “Don’t Walk Sign”. And I trust them to recuse me if I do become in danger. But when I become an adult I become independent, thinking that I can do everything on my own, even if this is not the case. I don’t ask for help and in my stubbornness I try to defeat the things that far too grand for me. I trust no one but myself. Childlike faith calls us to dependance, and we must certinaly depend on God to help us avoid the traps of Satan.
So may we have our eyes opened to a new way of praying. May we talk less and listen more. May we give our relationship with God the attention and honor it deserves. And may we pray big prayers, showing our trust and dependance on God. For our teacher in Christ showed us that God can handle big prayers when he gave us the example of the Lord’s prayer. May we never see the familiar the same again.
- Michelle

July 6th sermon podcast

2008-07-08T14:55:00.001-04:00

Suffering - Job 23 and Hebrews 12: 5-12

2008-07-06T21:19:00.002-04:00

What I am going to discuss tonight isn’t an easy topic. In fact, it is bound to bring up memories of heartache and failures and trials. But I also know that it is time for us, as the Church, to have an open honest discussion about what it means to suffer.
The Book of Job, in the Old Testament, tells what seems to be the ultimate story of suffering. Some background before we look closer at chapter 23. Job was a devout servant of God’s. One day Satan decided that he wanted to prove to God that Job was only devout because of how blessed he was. In Satan’s words “Job fears God for nothing…Stretch out your hand now and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face.” (1: 9b, 11) So God permitted Satan to test Job’s faith and prove that he was righteous, but commanded him not to kill Job. Fast forward. Satan continually attacks Job. He gets sores all over his body. All of his sons and daughters die. His livestock all perish. His life quickly went from comfortable to miserable. And everyone around Job, including his wife and friends insist that Job has made God’s wrath upon him and that he needs to repent of his sins in order to restore God’s good favor. His wife even told him that his life wasn’t worth living and that he was better off to curse God and die. However, Job knew in his heart that he hadn’t sinned against God..
Chapter 23, where we find ourselves this evening, is Job’s lament to God. A lament could be described as just simply crying out to God in anguish and telling him how things in life suck at the moment. All too often we feel that we need to put on a happy face for God, a mask. But he knows what’s in our heart, so we might as well tell him. Speak to God what you are thinking. While some are going to find this crass, there is a professor who once said that if you can’t think of any other word to describe what you are feeling, then curse in your prayers to God, because at least then you are being honest. The Psalms are filled with these prayers of distress, crying out in honesty to God. And here we have Job’s anguish laid out as he cries to God. He is essentially saying to God, hey I’ve done nothing to deserve this and if I knew where you where I would come and tell you that to your face. But this is not, hear me out, not Job finding pride in himself. Verse 6 he says “Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted for ever by my judge.”
Even in Job’s absolute destitute state he still believes that God can rescue him. He might be crying out “Why God!?!” but he hasn’t lost faith that God can still redeem this situation. How many times have we been there? Totally able to identify with Job. When we’ve lost a job and a new one hasn’t come. When we get a diagnosis that alters our life. When we bury a spouse…or a child. We all have been where Job has been in one for or another, we have all been amidst suffering. When we cannot see two feet in front of us in the pitch blackness of life.
And really, Job hits the nail on the head, when in verse 8 he says, “If I go forward, he is not there; or backwards, I cannot perceive him.” We run into this problem along the path of life, where we cannot perceive him, thus we logically conclude that God has abandoned us. We cite that God obviously even abandoned Christ on the cross on Good Friday, when Jesus cries “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” before taking his last breathe. But see we have made a fatal error. We have judged God’s presence by our ability to sense him, when suffering all so often shuts down all of our senses as we retreat inside of ourselves. Our eyesight is marred, because for the most part we can only see what we want to see, and since God isn’t acting in the way we wanted him to act, we conclude he isn’t there. When really he’s been there all along. Waiting for us to come to him.
Here’s the thing, God does not cause tragedies in our life to happen and he does not cause suffering. This is not in his nature. BUT he can redeem all of our suffering. He can take the messy, horrible moments in our lives and turn them into something beautiful, if we let him. But we have to choose to let him. If we continue to retreat into the darkness in an attempt to hid from the pain, we won’t find healing. Healing doesn’t come from the darkness, but only from the light. William P. Young’s book, The Shack, is a story all about human suffering during tragedies, and how God often gets blamed for tragedies instead of clung to for healing and wholeness and comfort. In the story, God speaks to the main character Mack, whose daughter was kidnapped, raped, and ultimately killed, about suffering. He says, “Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies does not mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means that I caused it or need it to accomplish my purpose. That will only lead to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend of suffering to exist, but where you find suffering you will find grace in many colors and facets.”
We are all going to have moments of grief in our lives. Moments when we don’t know how we are even going to get through the day because of the overwhelming sadness. Christ had those moments too. Look at the gospel story of Jesus in the Garden right before he was betrayed and abandoned by his disciples. He is on his needs before God praying “Dad, you could make what’s going to happen disappear. If it’s possible, can you make it so I don’t have to suffer and die But if this is the only way, I’ll do it.” I have a friend Jesse, who is such a source of wisdom to me. One conversation I’ve had with him, that I’ll never forget, is about these “Garden moments” as he calls them, in our lives. Those time that we are standing up at the sky yelling “Where are you GOD?” or crying “Why?” But what we don’t realize is that God is right there in the Garden with us, and our inability to perceive that is what makes everything so much more difficult. And we have a choice, to stay in the Garden, know that as we cry out to God that he will work everything out for our ultimate good because he loves us so much, or we can walk away from God because we assume that he is to blame. We forget who God is. And we forget that after the garden and the cross came the resurrection.
And there are going to be times in our lives when we ultimately blame for our own suffering. It’s a hard fact to swallow. Those times when we are so deep in sin that God has to attempt to discipline us, like a good parent, to get us back in line. He doesn’t want to punish us, but out of love he has to. But he is still not the cause of our suffering, our sin is! When I was little, around 3, I had a huge problem with biting people. And we’re not talking like playfully nibble on you, we are talking sinking baby teeth into flesh and leaving marks and making people bleed. I was out of control. So one day my dad bit me back. Not hard enough to make me bleed and not even half as nasty as I was to other people, but a bite none the less. And that, was the end of my biting. Period. Did my dad want to punish me or bring suffering to me? No. But if he didn’t do something then I was going to be out of control. And that is what the Hebrews passage is talking about:
“My child do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines those he loves and chastises every child whom he accepts. Endure trials for the sake of discipline….Discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit or righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Job ultimately says the same thing “When he tested me, I shall come out like Gold.” Brother and sisters God is redeeming us. As difficult as it is, take joy in that! When refiners work with Gold and Silver, they hold a piece of the precious metals over the fire and let it heat up in the middle of the fire, where the flames are the hottest. Only then can all of the impurities be burned away. And the smith has to sit in front of the fire during the entire process. And the most beautiful part of the process, is the end when the smith knows that the metal is fully refined when he can see his image in it. Sometimes we need to suffer to take away the impurities in our hearts, those things that keep us from God, so that his image can be seen in us! But like the smith, he never leaves us during the entire process.
Sometimes suffering just happens. And other times we cause it. But as I’ve been dwelling on suffering, I’m taken back to the image of the pearl. A stone formed by pain and suffering. God redeems all of our suffering because we are precious to him. And through all of our suffering we are being formed more in his image.
I’d like to close by reading a poem I wrote about suffering entitled Pearl:
I am a Pearl. Tested and tried.
Formed through suffering, pain, and joy.
Crafted by God's hand.
For His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
I have gone through some things that no one has ever went through.
And things that everyone has went through.
Broken hearts, scrapped knees, emotional wounds.
But I am for His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
I hold a unique color like no other Pearl.
I started out as something small, a piece of sand.
But I have grown so much, and now shine
For His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
God did not orchestrate my suffering.
But he has redeemed it.
I am beautiful and become even more so each day.
Because I am for His Delight.

- Michelle

Name - Who am I? Based off of Nooma Name

2008-06-29T22:28:00.001-04:00

Who am I?

Girl. Daughter. Lover of God. LOVED by God. Social Advocate. Intern. Complex. Emotional. Learner. Ambitious. Anxious. In between. Lost. Lonely. Bold. Scared. Timid. Caring. Student. Dependable. Dependent. Loving. WORTHY. Insecure. Liberal. Innovative. Intelligent. Happy. Mixed-Up. Fearful. Helpless. Maternal. Self-aware. Sarcastic. Wounded. Thoughtful. Spiritual. Uncertain.
These are just a few of the words to describe who I am. Imcomplete, yes, but they give some idea of the shape of my soul, my emotions, my being. But notice that most of those words, most of the things that define me are not things that people can tell just by looking at me.

Name tags are deceptive, aren’t they. A cheap copout at best.. We're pretending to know people whom we really don't know. Our name is something unique to us and cannot be severed from our personal stories. Our first name holds the story of our life - with its trials, ambitions, and wonderful moments. Our sir name tells an even longer story of our heritage and family. Our nicknames tell of those private and sometimes embarrassing, but always intimate moments. But to wear a name tag skips right over all of that. It allows us to approach someone on a surface level without any intention to get to know them, to hear their story. I think we have enough of that type of shallowness in our society.

For example: When I was at the installation ceremony for a friend of the family who was becoming a DS, we all had to wear name tags. After a while of brooding over the hated tag, I forgot about it. Until it came to the end of the service for communion and a time of meet and greet. At the alter rail the pastor serving the elements leaned over and addressed me by name. I freaked out and couldn't figure out how this person knew me, until I remembered the tag. The same things happened at the meet and greet, where instead of people asking my name and trying to get to know me, they just looked at my name tag and glossed right over any attempt for connection.

We live in a society where we desire everything to be easy, including getting to know people. But there is a process, that begins with asking people their name and inches forward into more intimate areas. It's a long process. There is a complete difference in my mind between recognizing someone's name and knowing their name. When I know someone's name, I know something meaningful, true, and deep about them. Honestly, even with my closest friends, I'm still getting to know them, and there are things that I learn about my family that are new just about every day. Yet, we try to circumvent this process in the church with a name tag. Is there any hope for intimacy if we aren't willing to take the time, even to introduce ourselves and ask someone their name?

And maybe the problem isn’t just that we want to have a shallow feeling of connection with others. Maybe the problem is much deeper and we don’t really want to take time to know ourselves. It’s hard work. It’s going to involve sifting through the past and remembering both the good and the bad. And it means doing the even harder work of separating the fiction of how other people have defined you from the truth of what God sees when he looks at you. I challenge you to take time to actually ask God what he likes about you, what he sees when he looks at you. Because, brothers and sisters, in the age we live in, he may be the only person who really knows who we are, what our name is, since we don’t even know ourselves.

"If you're name isn't known then its a very lonely feeling." - Madeleine L'Engle
- Michelle

June 22nd sermon podcast

2008-06-23T15:21:00.001-04:00

A little more processing knowledge.

Dead in Sin, Alive in God - Romans 6:1-23

2008-06-23T11:15:00.001-04:00

First, a little history of Rome at the time of this letter.

By 49 or 50, Jews who were not followers of Jesus and the Jewish Christians had been fighting so much that Emporer Claudius expelled them from Rome. Paul became acquainted with the situation from Aquila and Prisicilla, Jewish Christians he met in Corinth where he worked with them in their common trade, tent-makers.

Paul is writing this letter about 55-56 AD. Some of these Jewish Christians had returned to Rome. So now, the The Christian church in Rome was comprised of Gentiles that had converted to Christianity and Jews who accepted Jesus as their Messiah. The bulk of the Church was formed of the Jews. There was disagreements between the two groups over the "correct" method of following Jesus. The Jewish Christians still followed the Law of Moses, and the Gentiles did not.

Paul levels the playing field, in chapter 3, and says;

"Romans 3: 21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ."

This letter, like the rest of the Bible, is still relevant to us today, whether we are Jewish or "Gentile".

So far, Paul has been talking about God's life and how God does everything and we do nothing towards our salvation. No work that we do, nor any goodness that we proclaim has anything to do with our being saved. It doesn't matter who we are, who our parents were, our ancestors or anything we've done, God does it all! He treats all people, Jew and Gentile, religious and pagan the same. As sinners.

So, if God does it all, how can Paul tell us to do anything? If no good deed helps us, why do anything good? If God loves us and accepts us even though we sin, why not just sin, and take the easy road?

Because, Paul tell us, our new life of holiness is the sequel to the act of justification, (a fancy theological word that Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message, renders as "in right standing" with God.)

Up to this point, sin was a "crime against the Law" and carried a criminal sentence. Now, it is contrary to who we are (striving to live as Jesus did) and is destructive to our new way of life.

It affects our daily lives, and who we are.

Before, we lived in fear of being discovered and punished because of our sins. Now, it's as if we are engaging in self-destructive practices or self-injury. And we know it displeases God, and He is disappointed in us. How many of us considered our parents' disappointment a more severe form of punishment than any physical or "worldly" punishment. Groundings and having things taken from us doesn't hurt as much as knowing we disappointed the ones we love.

I'm a very sarcastic person and have a, sometimes, nasty sense of humor. It's hurtful to others and it's something I need to ask God to help me eliminate. Sometimes I speak before thinking and end up hurting somebody's feelings. The knowledge that I've done this causes me more pain than if that person would just walk up to me and smack me in the face.

That's how I feel when I've sinned against God, and I know He's disappointed in me.

When we sin, we also make ourselves slaves to the sin. We're bound up in the sinful nature and behavior. The sin takes over and begins to run our lives.
O what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
(Sir Walter Scott, Marmion)

Suppose you have served in the military. You have faced the abuse of your Drill Sergeant in basic training and had to endure his transfer into your unit where he continued to intimidate. One day you get your discharge papers in the mail. On the day you become a civilian again you see you former Drill Sergeant. He barks an order in your direction and you start to obey. Suddenly you remember that this man no longer has any authority over you. So you smile, wave, and keep on walking.

When we place our faith and trust in Jesus we are discharged to a different service. Sin (our Drill Sergeant) no longer has any legal right over us. Our debt to sin was paid by Jesus.

We need to choose that discharge, that freedom, by giving ourselves to God, and living in his ways.

Since we already belong to God, though we've been given the "freedom" to do as we choose, it follows that living the way God intends, is the best way to live. Your car was made to run on gasoline, but you're "free" to put diesel or kerosene in it, but it's not going to run the way the manufacturer intended, unless you put gasoline in it. The same with us, our lives are not going to "run" the way the Heavenly Father intends if we continue to sin.

"Romans 6: 22-23 But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

Is this going to happen overnight? NO! don't be discouraged by being human, get back up and keep going.

Think about it this way. Suppose you were right-handed. You wrote with your right hand, threw the ball with your right hand, and did most of your work with your right hand. Suppose your right hand was severely injured. Now you have to learn with your left hand. You are willing to learn but development takes time. At first you can barely feed yourself. Everything seems awkward and forced. Your handwriting is illegible and you throw the ball like a preschooler. But you keep working. Eventually you learn to manage with your left hand.

We have been sin-oriented all our lives. Now we begin the difficult task of learning to turn from sin and follow the Lord. At first, our new life may seem doomed to failure. The image of Christ may be barely recognizable in us. But if we keep working and continue to work at following the Lord, we will begin to see the life of Christ built in us.

How are you doing today in your walk with Jesus? Are you securely in his grasp, walking with him, trying to be just like him? Or are you struggling? have you tripped, or fallen? Get up! grab His hand and continue your walk, and if that's a struggle, ask for help from another Christian. We need to pray for one another as we walk with Him. We need to love, support and help one another as Jesus does. We need to watch out for one another. We are His hands, His feet, His disciples here on earth.

So when you see someone struggling, don't just walk on by, stop, offer Jesus' hand of help and love. Lift each other up, spiritually, emotionally and physically, if needed. Let's show the world Jesus through our day to day life.

- Ralph

Gen 18: 1-15

2008-06-16T20:14:00.002-04:00

HOSPITALITY

ILLUS: The Talmud states that faithful Jews must thank God as much for good days as bad

Many churches state, “All welcome!”

Abraham and Sarah practice radical hospitality. Baked bread, killed the calf. Didn’t just do the bare minimum, but invited them into their home and life for a time. This was a matter of life and death for those traveling in the desert.

1 Peter 4:9:
9Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Matthew 25: I was a stranger and you invited me in.

ILLUS: Bare minimum….doing as little as necessary to get an A in a class.

In our busyness, do we truly practice radical hospitality, or do we scrape up leftovers and do the bare minimum?

HURDLES/SURPRISES
ILLUS: Andy Griffith show: surprise party. Barney sees Andy and Helen in the jewelry store sneaking a kiss and tells everyone they are engaged. Aunt Bee redecorates Andy's room for a bride and throws a big surprise party for them.

ILLUS: My father---

Kidnapped, raised by grandparents, never knew mother
Never finished high school, though intelligent
Worked hard to ensure a better life for children
Taught perseverance, determination
Life of faith will throw curveballs at us. Even when it means God’s blessing, there will be hurdles and surprises.

HUMOR
Walking with God takes a sense of humor. It is the beginning of an awesome and scary journey. Sarah laughed. I would too.
Laughter is healthy and necessary to deal with the faith hurdles.

Sarah laughed because God was promising something that every sensible bone in her body thought was impossible. Kind of like it used to be said that breaking the sound barrier was impossible.

ILLUS: Breaking the Sound Barrier (book by Theresa Flint-Borden). Sometimes walking in faith is like breaking the sound barrier.

Here are transcripts from the PBS show, NOVA 10/24/97 (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2412barrier.html)

SIR PETER MASEFIELD: There was a feeling that this was a barrier. It couldn't be overcome, because airplanes would go out of control and nothing could be done to bring them in.

DE BEELER: Well, there were a lot of people that said it was impossible. And that's why they talked about the sonic wall. That means like a brick wall. And a lot of people accepted that.

STACY KEACH (NARRATOR): The day that a plane first flew faster than sound was a milestone in the history of aviation. Many thought it couldn't be done. But great risks were taken, and lives were lost to prove the skeptics wrong.

CAPT. ERIC BROWN: There was a huge amount of vibration juddering through the aircraft. As you got closer to the speed of sound, each bite beyond a certain limit was fraught with the possibility of disaster.

ANN B. CARL: Funny things began to happen inside the cockpit. Dust was flying around. The stick would bang over against my leg, and I tried various things. It was certainly not a pleasant feeling to have the plane out of control. We were just going so fast that I didn't think I could probably get out.

Lots of people tried and just gave up when they were almost there.

STACY KEACH (NARRATOR): Most frightening of all, it became harder and harder to pull the Spitfire out of its dive. The elevator, the movable part of the tail that changes the angle of the dive, wouldn't work, no matter how hard the pilot pulled back on the control stick.

SIR PETER MASEFIELD: Several test pilots, sadly, were lost because the airplane went uncontrollable.
STACY KEACH (NARRATOR): But the risks and sacrifice helped reveal why these World War II fighter planes were going out of control. At slow speeds, the air flowed smoothly over the thick wings. But near the speed of sound, air traveled so fast that it formed shock waves, causing it to break away from the wing surface. The air would become turbulent, disrupting the wing and tail controls. Worse still, the lift generated by the air moved backwards, tipping the plane into an uncontrollable dive.

STACY KEACH (NARRATOR): Yeager was in considerable pain. On the eve of the flight, he had fallen off a horse and broken his ribs.

BRIG. GEN. CHUCK YEAGER: You're in a very dark hole under the B-29, and when you drop clear of the B-29, you're in bright sunlight. When I got above 94% of the speed of sound, the nose begins to come up on the airplane. I just cranked the leading edge up on the horizontal stabilizer to keep the nose down. When we went a little faster, the mach meter went off the scale and when it did, all the buffeting smoothed out, because the supersonic flow went over the whole airplane. And even I knew we had gotten above the speed of sound.

From http://www.acepilots.com/usaaf_yeager2.html:

The X-1 had gone through "the sonic wall" without so much as a bump. As the speed topped out at Mach 1.05, Yeager had the sensation of shooting straight through the top of the sky. The sky turned a deep purple and all at once the stars and the moon came out - the sun shone at the same time. ... He was simply looking out into space. ... He was master of the sky. His was a king's solitude, unique and inviolate, above the dome of the world.
God has amazing, seemingly impossible plans in store for each of us. There is only one requirement as we are faced with the blessings and challenges of God’s plans: are we willing to be faithful? Faithful enough to practice radical hospitality? Faithful enough to hang in there through the hurdles? Faithful enough to laugh at the ridiculousness of the seemingly impossible things that God can and will do with those who surrender to God’s will.

- Renee

June 15th Sermon Podcast

2008-06-16T14:25:00.005-04:00

Our first podcast! be gentle, it's also the first podcast I've created. Great learning experience. Obviously I need to learn more about audio processing and editing, but it's a first step. Enjoy!
God Bless, Ralph

Intimacy with God - Based off Psalm 36: 5-10, John 5: 19-30

2008-06-08T21:13:00.001-04:00

In his book Soul Cravings, author and pastor Erwin McManus puts forth the idea that all human beings have three basic cravings. We yearn for intimacy, destiny, and meaning. We have these deep desires in us for these cravings because God has designed us to have them, to lead us into a deeper relationship with him from which we derive our identity. However, after Genesis 3, with the Fall of Creation through the sin of Adam and Eve, things have become a little messed up. We no longer look to God to fulfill our cravings, but rather turn to other things and people to define who we are.
Tonight, I want to focus on the first craving. The craving of intimacy. We want to belong. To be loved and accepted for who we are. But we’ve ran into several roadblocks that make us fearful of intimacy as well. We become bitter because other people have hurt us.
And all of this leads back to the ultimate problem, we’ve looked to others to fulfill this deep longing for intimacy. But because they are fallen, just like you and me, we will never be loved by others as perfectly as we desire to be. And then we turn around and instead of thinking, okay, no human can love me perfectly, because only God, my Father, my Abba, my Daddy, can love me perfectly, we use human failures to define God. We shy away from going deeper into a relationship with God because we think he’ll hurt us, because well, everyone else has. What a tragedy! We cut ourselves off in fear from the perfection of love, the only true acceptance we will ever have! It’s like we have forgotten all about 1 John 4:16 which says, “We know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.” We don’t trust God. We don’t trust his love. But God calls us to remember, remember all of the times that he held us close and told us that he loves us, and has this beautiful, amazing, relationship with us. Do not let bitterness from the pain inflicted by other imperfect people block you from this relationship.
For about a year now, I’ve been signing almost all of my emails with “You are LOVED.” I hope that this is a small reminder to those I correspond with that they are first and foremost loved as a child of Christ. They are loved by God no matter how they see themselves or how others see them. They are loved by God no matter what they can or cannot do, because God doesn’t alter his love for us. He loves us just as we are, broken pieces and all. I equate this to something that I have told a friend of mine. I love him for who he was, who he is, and who he is going to be. I love him, because I love him and I see beauty in him even on his bad days. My care for him isn’t based off of a feeling, it goes deeper then that. And that is just a small glimpse of how God loves us, with this unshakeable love. 1 John 3:10 reminds us just how deeply God loves us when he says “The Father has loved us so much that we are called children of God. And we really are his children.” Just incase you missed the fact that you are a child of God, John emphasizes it twice in one sentence. In other words, this is a big deal. We have this intimate connection with God, that all too often, once again, has been marred in its beauty because of our tarnished human families. God loves you the way a perfect father would. For those of you who didn’t have the ideal father, God is the one who created you. He rejoices over you. He cheers you on. He scolds you out of love in order to make you develop into a more complete person. He sacrificed everything for you. God would be the dad who would be home early every night to ask you how your day was and mean it,, and tuck you in at night.
If I could think of one person who had an intimate relationship with God from the scriptures I would say David. David was a little Shepard boy who God choose to be the King of Israel. He is known for being called a man after God’s own heart and promised that one of his decedents will be the Messiah. David and God were close. If you need proof just look at the psalms. David was close enough to God to tell him when he was having a horrible day. He was intimate enough with God to share his highest joys and deepest pains. He had no doubt that God had made him and loved him, even when he screwed up, which he of course did. And the relationship that David boasts of in today’s scripture passage, that dear brothers and sisters is what we crave! Steadfast, faithful love. Love that envelops us and lets us rest in the knowledge that we are loved, perfectly, forever. And that steadfast love, the love that God showed to David, he is trying to show to all of us, if our bitterness would stop blocking him.
The beauty of our relationship with God, the intimacy we crave from God, flows from the intimacy he has with himself. Follow me now into the deep waters of theology – the study of God. As Christians we believe that that God is three in one. We believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. All three have separate functions, but they are all equal. And they cannot be complete without one another. They are always present with one another and their love is perfect and complete. They need each other so that they can give love, because love requires an object.
I know that all sounds confusing. And honestly, it is. But I want to share with you a passage that describes this reciprocal, perfect love from William Young’s The Shack. “Jesus reached across the table and took Papa [God’s] hand in his, scars now clearly visible on his writs. Mack sat transfixed as Jesus took his Father’s hand and kissed it and looked deep into his Father’s eyes and finally said, “Papa, I loved watching you today as you made yourself fully available to Mack to take Mack’s pain into yourself, and than giving him space to choose his own timing. You honored him, and You honored me. To listen to you whisper love and calm his heart was truly incredible. What a joy to watch! I love being your son!”
This intimacy, dependence, passion for one another, and authentic love is what Christ was describing in John chapter 5 when he says “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does the son does likewise. The Father loves the sons and shows him all that he himself is doing and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” The Godhead was revealed at different places for different purposes in history. At Mount Sinai where God gave Moses the 10 Commandments and covered the mountain as a cloud, but Christ and the Holy Spirit were present also, because they each can do nothing of their own. At Bethlehem, Christ was born as a baby, after the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, but God and the Spirit were present also, because they each can do nothing of their own. And at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit distributed spiritual gifts and languages to the believers, but God and Christ were present also, because they each can do nothing of their own. Do you see how God’s intimacy, his love is linked to his dependency? Can you see that this relationship is ultimately one of community, acceptance, belonging, and identity?
May we strive to have this type of intimacy in our relationship with God. May we become utterly dependent upon God and place all of our trust in him. And may we stop defining our relationship with the Most High off of our fallen relationships with others. God yearns to show you true intimacy, let him. Amen.

Worship

2008-05-25T22:30:00.003-04:00

Why are we even here? I mean why of all the things you could be doing on a Sunday night did you choose to come here, to a gathering of people, the Church. Furthermore, why do we do the things we do and call it worship? What’s the point?
For most people the reason is simple, they’ve always came to church because it’s “the right thing to do” and they participate in the monotanity of worship without asking any questions, because “it’s always been that way”. But at Soul Café, we could never be content with gathering without a purpose, and just having mindless participation.
We are here to CELEBRATE GOD. Here’s the thing, we all worship something, even if we don’t realize it. We all pledge our alligence or swear by some form of worship to give their life meaning, even if its swearing that there is nothing worthy of worship. That’s still a choice, a decision to form life by. But when we gather together in worship we say that there IS someone worthy of Worship, worthy to align our lives by, and that someone is God.
We worship to proclaim that the person we value the most in our lives is God, and that no one else will ever compare to him. In fact, we value our relationship with him so much that we desire to follow him, to be like him, to commune with him. That’s a pretty powerful statement that we make by attending a worship service.
But here’s the thing. A worship service isn’t the definition of worship, its not the be all, end all. In fact, it’s only a tiny piece of it. We worship God when we put him first in our lives. We should worship God every day, but sadly most people can’t even put him first when they come to a gathering like this. I guess it all comes down to where your heart is at. Do you come here because you feel you should, in order to save face, but loathe every minute of it, because that’s not putting God first. Or do you come here as a gesture, feeling that you want to celebrate in God’s glory with others. Yes, there are going to be times that you don’t want to be at worship, but is your heart at least searching for God?
See it’s only when we put God first that we can really transform. That’s why so many people get absolutely nothing out of a once a week service. We need to be seeking him daily. In John it is written “The time will come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, and that time is here already. You see, the Father too is actively seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24) We need to choose to put him first ALWAYS, but some people can’t even put him first for an hour. I’m not going to stand here and lie to you by saying that it’s going to be easy to put God first. I have friends who have intimately loved God for years who are just now realizing the struggle that comes with displacing ourselves and our wants for what God wants for us. But they also know that putting God first, that following him, is what’s best for us, and anything less would be settling.
Let’s get back to this idea of celebrating. I think this or rather a lack of celebration is what Jesus meant when he said “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my father in Heaven. On that day many will say to me “Lord we cast out deamons in your name and do many deeds of power.” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you. Go away from me.” (Matthew 7:21-22) We should have joy in God, and quite frankly those who can truly see the hand of God in their lives WANT to celebrate him. Because those who truly intimately have sought God and know him, can’t help but celebrate in him for he is so good! For years and years I never got this. But suddenly one day when I was zoning out at a conference I was attending, it all came together. God DELIGHTS in me. He DELIGHTS in you! And I DELIGHT in Him. Woah. Hold up. God actually LIKES me. He LIKES you. I don’t think I can even convey the joy that I find in the truth of that realization. It makes me giddy each time I think about it. And that makes my worship such a joyful expression, I can celebrate God when I’m alone and he is just speaking to me and pouring his love over me. I can celebrate God when I am having a terrible day and I’m lamenting to him. I can be overwhelemed with God when I walk with a friend through nature or down a city street. And I can celebrate God here with all of you. And what is so amazing about group worship, like this, to me is that we can share our journies with one another. We can celebrate God in the midst of grieving hearts and burdensome loads and regrets along with the amazing moments. We exist as a body to just reach out to one another. Another realization I’ve had recently, is yes, crap happens, but in order for it to turn out for good we need to share it with one another, because what’s went on in my life has probably went on in someone elses life here and they need a word of encouragement, that I can give them because I’ve been there. Do you see, God created public worship because we NEED each other. We are not meant to be alone, and that Goes the whole way back to God creating Adam and Eve to be helpmates for one another.
Maybe you agree with me up to this point, but you are still caught up in the weekly way that worship is done. Maybe you’re thinking ‘ What’s up with that?’ Litergy is ten dollar word that we throw around that means, the way the church does things during a service. I grew up in a very formal church. We do all sorts of things from singing the “Gloria chorus” as a praise to God to lighting candles to signify the presence of the holy spirit, to singing rich hymns, and reading a psalm together. We do a lot of stuff in unison to say that we are a body, many but one.
Here at Soul Café our liturgy is a little different. We spice things up with different ways to pray or read the scripture each week. We encourage movement and expressing your worship through all of your senses. But that doesn’t make our way any better or worse then the formal church. No matter what type of celebration you gather to engage in there will be three common elements: the reading of scripture, prayer, and the offering.
We gather to read the scripture corporately because the Bible was not meant to be read alone. Travel with me in your minds back to the days when Christ was alive. There was one, one scripture for the entire town, so everyone had to gather together to hear the word. Fast forward a bit to when the rest of the Bible is being composed. There still wasn’t a printing press so their assumption would have been that the word would be read and studied together. The Bible is meant to be avtiley discussed amongst people, even today. This doesn’t negate the benefit of personal study, but you need both to get the whole picture.
We prayer together so we can lift up the body together. We pray because honestly that is the most powerful, amazing tool that we have as Christians. We get to communicate with the Holy Most High King. Wow. And I don’t know about your personal prayer life, but sometimes mine isn’t that strong. But then I get to gather with others and see the faith that they have in prayer, the zeal, and I desire to communicate with God more passionately. And I also am assured that when I am so distressed that I can’t pray that someone is lifting me up before God. We pray corporately because we all have different concerns. We prayer together because there is strength in numbers. God wants us to pray big prayers. We seriously have such weak prayers today, praying for what we already know we are going to get or praying as a last ditch effort. But prayers can move mountains, and I find that my faith in God and in prayer is so much stronger and is renewed when we gather for this time of worship.
And we take an offering. Yes, I know, I know, the money factor. Isn’t the church just being greedy by bringing this up? No. God desires an offering. And not just of money. God wants us to give at least ten percent to him. Ten percent of what? Ten percent of the harvest. Yes, for most of us this means money because we work to earn a living. I have an amazing friend who really opened up my eyes to tithing. I sometimes struggled to give my ten percent to God because I was worried that I wasn’t going to have enough. But he showed me such faith by saying that he matches whatever the government takes out of his paycheck as his tithe. If the government takes out that much for taxes, surely God deserves at least that much. The ten percent that we give back to God should be the first ten percent, the best. That means before we even have time to worry about how to meet the needs, that check is written. And God will provide.
So yes, there is the money factor, but what if we took offering a step further. What if we intentionally gave God ten percent of our time in a day? That means at least 2.4 hours to do nothing but spend time with God, focus on him, find joy in him. What if we gave ten percent of our food away to the hungry? A portion of our gifts we gave back to the church to further God’s kingdom? We are called to offer all of ourselves and our resources, not just our money.
In conclusion I want you to think about an illustration that most people use for worship. I hear people say all the time that they “come to worship to be filled just so they can get through the week.” Hear me out, worship is not a gas station. You do not come here primarly for you. If you worship God, you will be filled because he rejoices in the praise of his people. He wants to fill you. He wants you to depend on him. And he wants you to be in his presence. But this is all secondary to the fact that we are to worship God for who he is. The Psalmist writes “Say to God ‘ Your works are amazing! Because your power is great, your enemies fall before you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you! They sing praises to his name.” (Psalm 66:3-4) Is that why we are here? To lay our entire selves before God and just tell him how awesome he is? To encourage one another with the good works that God is doing in our lives? Because anything less then that is just empty self-centered noise to God’s ears.
- Michelle

The Great Commission - Matthew 28:16-20

2008-05-19T13:11:00.000-04:00

This was right after Jesus was resurrected from the dead. The angel met Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at the empty tomb. The angel told them to go tell the disciples that Jesus had gone before them into Galilee. They met Jesus on their way to tell the disciples. Jesus also told Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to go and tell His brothers (disciples) to go to Galilee to meet him.
Even some of his closest associates had doubts. These are people that He had been with for 3 years! They had just been through a total upheaval of their world. They "lost" their teacher, their rabbi, their Lord. Imagine yourself in their place, imagine that you had just spent the last 3 years of your life traveling and living with the Son of God. He's removed from your midst, arrested, beaten mercilessly, and executed in the most heinous method known, crucifixion.
That had to be one of the lowest points of their lives. And then to hear that He has risen. That He's been seen alive and has sent you a message to meet him at a mountain top near Galilee. I'm sure there were some who were saying "see, I told you, he came back, just like he said he would" and others thinking, if not saying, "it's just not possible, I saw what he went through, it's just not possible". Even after they saw him in person, some doubted.
Alex was home on a break from his church college, and he had questions—spiritual questions. He made an appointment with his trusted Pastor, Nick Marsden. “I can’t question anything in my religion class,” Alex complained. “The professor, Old Beady-eyes, thinks anyone’s a heathen who questions one little thing.”
“So you decided to dump all your doubts on me,” responded Pastor Nick.
“Yeah, I think I can talk with you—and you can’t flunk me, either!” Alex replied. “So, for example, what about the Trinity? I can’t even begin to figure that out!”
“Join the club!” Pastor Nick answered. “So far I haven’t heard of anyone who can.”
“Well, how can I believe something I don’t understand?” Alex asked.
“Oh, we believe all kinds of things we don’t understand,” said his pastor. “For example, we believe in gravity, don’t we? I know that I can’t jump to the top of the steeple of this church! I know gravity exists, but I don’t understand it; do you?”
They talked some more about the Trinity and other questions about Christianity. And finally they agreed that doubt could be a good thing when it compels us to probe. Probing our faith, after all—especially in the company of the church—can cause us to grow spiritually.
But that didn't stop Jesus, He started out by telling them where He got his authority, God. He was speaking with the authority and presence of the Living God. He told them to; Go! (the original Greek word could be better translated as "As you go") as if it was already assumed that they would be going out into the world.
Go out, and train everyone in this way of life. They were to train others to live the way they were living, devoted to the spreading of the message of Jesus, the Son of God, the Living God.
Where? near and far they weren't to just do the easy work, in the next village, the next city, the next province. They were to go throughout the known world, both to places that were going to be familiar and comfortable to them, as well as foreign places.
Mark them by baptism, a symbolic cleansing, to show the world that they are disciples of Jesus, washed free from sin and the old ways
in the threefold name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit this is the Triune God, three persons in one.
I know this isn't exactly theologically "correct", but this came to me yesterday.
We'll use the example of my father during my life from birth to adulthood. When I was a small child, Dad was the "authoritarian". How many remember "just wait until your father comes home" or "your father would be so disappointed" We obeyed and respected Dad from caution, or fear (in some families.) From what we read of the Jewish culture, I believe that's how God was viewed. A God of strength, force and might.
As I got older, say my mid to late teens, Dad was more of a buddy, someone to do things with, someone to learn from. This is how I think of Jesus. Someone to walk beside me day to day, talk to, a companion.
Then, after my Dad passed away, I had my memories. And there are times I think that just maybe, he is watching something I'm doing, or something my son is doing. I still talk to him, ask him how to do something, what's the best tool to use, or way to do something. I don't get an answer, but sometimes my memory is stirred or it causes me to pause and think about how Dad would have done it. This, to me, is what I imagine the Holy Spirit is. Not a great big "Dad" in the sky, but someone to seek strength and understanding from. That invisible someone who is
watching over me, tapping my conscience when it needs it. Someone who is there to give me strength and encouragement when things aren't
going quite right.
Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you
Don't keep this to yourself, share it, teach others. By teaching them, we make disciples of Jesus. After they have been taught, then they will, in turn, go out and teach others. Thus, the teachings of Jesus, the good news of his sacrifice, the very love of Jesus will be spread.
I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.
His promise to his disciples, is that he will be with them, until the end. He is not asking them to do anything above or beyond what He himself has done. He will be there, by their side, helping them, comforting them, and encouraging them.
This "Great Commission" is our commission too. We don't need to have "perfect" faith, even some of his disciples struggled. They were told to train "everyone", not just the important, the powerful, the rich. If we look at Jesus' ministry, we'll see that he sought out the poor, the widows, the sick, the sinners, to care for. We too, need to minister to everyone, especially the ones that so very much need His forgiveness, His love, and His compassion. There are so many around us, literally, that have not heard the message. We are surrounded by those in need. Those who are searching for that "something", that living water that will quench their thirst.
Notice, the disciples were not told to go to the temple and sit and wait for people to arrive. They were command to go out.
We, being disciples of Christ, have been given the exact same command, two thousand years later, Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you.
And we have the exact same promise, I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.
- Ralph

A Place to Belong - Acts 2:1-21

2008-05-13T22:20:00.001-04:00

A little background on Pentecost:
Pentecost stands for the great 50 days after Easter. In case you counted, this is actually the 7th Sunday after Easter – or 49 days. Pentecost is technically on Monday, but we celebrate the birthday of the church today. Pentecost is the day we celebrate being given the gift of the Holy Spirit. The first Pentecost was celebrated when Jews from all over the world journeyed to Jerusalem – to the temple – to give the first fruits of the harvest to the priests to make their offering to God. The festival was called the festival of Shavuot – which occurred (guess what?) 50 days after Passover. During Shavuot, Jewish people celebrated the giving of the Torah – the first 5 books of the Bible. Are you starting to see the connections?

So, people journeyed from all over the world –different cultures, languages, backgrounds. BUT a common faith. And this amazing thing happens. As the Galileans start to talk in their language, everyone can understand exactly what they are saying AS IF it were spoken in their own language. It was a reversal of the Tower of Babel – a story from the first book of the Bible (Genesis 11) where people were trying to build a tower to God and God decides to confuse all their languages, so they’d have to work at understanding each other.

On Pentecost, the Spirit brought unity and understanding.
Being understood is so important.

My background:
I don’t fit the mold of a pastor. My family were alienated Catholics, which meant that we didn’t go to church hardly ever. We didn’t even make the obligatory Christmas and Easter mass. Still, I did end up discovering the church because of friends and curiosity. I was called into ministry in my second year of college (I know, not exactly the typical time when people find Jesus!– and I wasn’t exactly on the straight and narrow). Plus, I didn’t understand or want to be called to ministry. It kind of got on my nerves, at first. I didn’t know how to speak church-ese. So, not knowing any better, I told my pastor I thought I was supposed to be a minister. Problem is…I had to wrestle long and hard with this call because I saw a lot wrong with the church. I finally decided that the church is the place God desires to gather people together to work toward the transformation of the world and to change lives. And I finally (with a fair amount of kicking, screaming, and skepticism) decided to give ministry a chance. God wouldn’t allow me to run from the call (much as I tried). I knew the church needed to look a lot different – LOTS of changes need to take place to get to on track with who God wants us to be. So, I started my ministry a bit like Jonah trying to run from the call, but God wouldn’t let go of me AND here I am J.

ILLUSTRATION: Postcards. We came across these old postcards when we were getting the space ready for Soul Café. They are pretty something! There’s a picture of mother and a father clutching their Bibles with their son and daughter who are all impeccably dressed and walking to church. My mom could never have gotten me that dressed up once a year, let alone every Sunday—and definitely not in the morning! I am not a morning person.
In my home church (the one I went to in college), I found acceptance. But, I’ve also seen plenty of messed up things in churches, too. Not everyone finds acceptance in the church when they’re “outsiders” like I was. But, see, the church exists for “outsiders.” Jesus spent almost all his time with “outsiders.” The disciples began as strangers, “outsiders,” to Jesus, too. There are so many people who don’t connect with all of the “friendly,” “traditional,” “picture-perfect” churches that can be found all over State College. I knew from the beginning my calling was to reach those who don’t feel fed by the traditional church…to minister to and with people who love God, but haven’t exactly gotten excited by what they’ve experienced in church.
The church should be a place of acceptance.

ILLUSTRATION: CLIP about Ben Comen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_sHBgUgFP8)
That’s the image of the church for us. When God pours out the spirit, God creates a team of people bound together with a common goal; a team willing to run alongside those who are struggling, to encourage them when they fall, and to strive to be their personal best for God. We don’t run the race alone. We need each other. That’s the way God intended it.
We all have times when we give life all we’ve got, only to find that we struggle to keep going. We all know people who, right now, are struggling to pick themselves up and continue on with their day to day challenges. We all need a place where we can belong; to not feel alone, but connected. There are plenty of lonely, disconnected souls who need a place to belong – to be accepted for who they are. Our hope, prayer, and calling at Soul Café is to create a community (a team) of support, encouragement, and hope: a place to belong.
- Renee Ford

Love

2008-04-10T10:41:00.002-04:00

Are you letting God love you?

This is the question that has captured my heart for the past couple of days. Really it's taken over my entire being. Most people, when asked this question would say, 'of course God loves me' and quietly start to hum "Jesus loves me this I know..." but notice that isn't the question. It's not a matter of whether God loves us, it's if we are letting him love us.

From August through November, I studied in Australia. While there I had to fight some major demons, some of which I lost to. I went through a stint, a rather long stint, where I just couldn't pray. When I would tell people about this distance that I felt from God and how I couldn't pray, the general response was 'of course you can pray. You just aren't trying hard enough. You just aren't concentrating." But that wasn't it. I literally could not talk to God. I was incapable. And it led me to feel very unworthy.

Then I came back from Australia in December and things seemed to get better, for about two weeks, but then I started having these horrible nightmares several times a night. Sometimes I would even wake up having panic attacks. During this time I couldn't sleep or eat. I didn't want to be around people in public places. I didn't return people's emails or phone calls. I couldn't function without naps. And I couldn't read, write, or think critically or even logically. In short, I was a mess. This strained a lot of my relationships and people just didn't understand. I was exhausted and broken.

Just so you don't think this story is only depressing, a week before Easter everything finally lined up and I was back to my old cheery self, but that is a story for another time.

So how does all of this relate to the above question and what does this have to do with the Church? When I first dwelt on the question "are you letting God love you?" I realized that I wasn't. Really all of the times I was pleading with God for healing, I was asking for it on my terms. A miracle, I wanted a miracle. But that wasn't what God's definition of healing entailed. I like to think about this in terms of human love. We all have a way we express and receive love best, but not everyone communicates love the same way. Sometimes we totally miss the love someone is extending to us because we are narrowly defining what love should look like by our own terms. When I couldn't pray, it wasn't because God was punishing me, it was because he wanted me to be silent enough to hear him whisper that he loves me. And he didn't just relieve the depression I was feeling quickly, because he wanted to bring complete healing to every part of me. He wanted me to seek his total presence, instead of just his hand. And now that I've spent that time, basking in his love, I know that he delights in me. I don't need to ask God to be the center of my life because when you spend time in his presence, and let him love you on his terms, he automatically becomes the center. You just want to dwell with him.

And you want to ask everyone the above question. Are you letting God love you? I've found that most people answer no, when pressed for an honest answer. But it's truly amazing to watch them transform as they open their eyes to God's love. It leads to God centered people fueled by love. It leads to everyone wanting to share this love that they are feeling. And I have to ask as I see the excitement that isn't dying down, but rather that increases day by day as they are just caught up in God's presence, where was this message my entire time in the Church? Where was the message that yes, Jesus loves me, but I have to let him love me? That my relationship with God can't just be on my terms and with my requests? Because I can tell you that in 21 years I have never heard that message. I guess that's what I want this plant to be about with Soul Cafe. I want us to be the church that asks the tough question, are you letting God love you? Because its more than past time for that truth to be accessed and dwelt upon. It's by that truth alone that we can really be changed.