Speak up

8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;

ensure justice for those being crushed.
9 Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless,

and see that they get justice.
Prov 31:8-9 (NLT)




I'll post the worship and sermon from yesterday a little later, but I wanted to get to the heart of it right now. New Hope is a church that stands with the saints in history by declaring the truth that we are all deeply flawed and scarred by sin, that we are in desperate need of a Savior, that Jesus is that Savior, and that by confessing our sins (agreeing with God), and receiving God's forgiveness by surrendering our lives and placing our faith in Jesus, we can be made whole. So we believe that Jesus IS our message. So having done that, how then do we live?

In the past year, we've established relationships to help us live out our faith while loving our neighbors. We work with Valparaiso Elementary, the City, Valp Cable, the Heritage Museum, and more recently Sharing and Caring to reach out in love.

As lead pastor, I believe that the only way I can see the command of Jesus to "make disciples, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded..." is to get people out of their chairs and into ministry - not to the church, but to the neighborhood. So I'm constantly looking for ways to do that here, and around the world. So I'm posting some ideas here today of ways to do just that.



Tom Davis is an amazing servant of Jesus, and the group of people who work with him are showing the American Church that "Yes We Can!" I placed a badge on this blog out of a strong identification with their work.




Then several organizations such as Samaritan's Purse, Heifer.org and others provide gift catalogs with tangible ways your family can be involved in impacting the world for Jesus. Our family is going to choose a project this Christmas, and I'm very excited about that.

"Having loved..."

We just got back from another trip to see Bunny's Mom at the nursing home in Macon. We got there at 11:59 PM Thursday night Eastern Time, and returned here at 4:30 Central time today. While we were there, Bunny went with her Mom to an appointment Friday morning at the Wound Care Center downtown near the Med Center. I drove down with her dad and Bunny rode in the van with Dot.

Then we spent the rest of the day Friday with her and some of the day today. Bunny helped her with her makeup, painted her nails... and encouraged her Mom. We even had NuWays for lunch yesterday. :)Now those are good for whatever ails you.

There's so much going on with so many decisions yet to be made concerning Dot's care. My father in law, Curtis Clinard, is one of the finest men I have ever known. He's there every day twice a day to sit with his bride. He talks at length about how much he wants her home - can tell you to the day how many days it has been since this whole sad period started. At a time in life where other men shrink in their commitments to their wives, if anything, his has grown.

Bunny is constantly thinking about her Mom, and while she is there is so focused on her that when we get back here she is drained for a day or two. Those of you that know Bunny know that she is all girl. Well, she is all that, and more. She's giving everything she has every time we go there to encourage, to help, and to serve her mom - in ways she has never done before.

When I look at those three people, I realize that so much of what I cherish is in that room. So many of the lessons of how to live the Christian life I've caught from just watching them.

Some of the translations open John 13 - the Passover meal with Jesus realizing that the disciples have either forgotten or are ignoring a pressing need to have their feet washed. It was a slave's job, really a slave third class. Jesus was there that night to share some important information with them, but He was also there to show His love.

Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end.
John 13:1 (MSG)

"Having loved"..."he continued to love them right to the end." That's Jesus - love

I know to the depths of my soul that Bunny will do just that for her Mom and Dad.

What a blessing God gave me when He gave me Curtis, Dot, and my treasure - Bunny.

What Matters?

Tomorrow is the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It's one of those times when you prepare in prayer by reminding yourself that numbers don't really matter. That being prepared to preach God's Word means being faithful in season and out of season. Most years, we lose more people to out of town trips than we gain coming in.

But I'm praying tonight that everyone who needs to hear God's Word will hear it - whether it's tomorrow or on down the road through the recording.

Thanksgiving sermons that I've preached and that I've heard over the years are basic appeals to do something your Mom probably tried to teach you: "Be thankful."

Preached a many of them. And they are needed I guess, or I wouldn't have been led to do that. But in the last few days and especially as I walked the halls of the nursing home these last few trips, I've been affected with the crushing losses some people must endure as they go there. They lose their home. Most essentially lose their family. All this after losing their abilities, their independence, and their freedom.

At a time of life when so many are trying to hold onto the past - whether possessions or people - it is as if God is prying their hands loose and asking - "Aren't I enough?"

It reminded me of this old hymn made famous by George Beverly Shea.

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands,
I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand.

Than to be a king of a vast domain
Or be held in sin’s dread sway,
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.

Praying that God will use the words of my mouth tomorrow to lead people to His grace. And praying that when the time comes for me, that I will prove faithful to My Lord and Savior.

New Hope @ Worship 16 Nov 2008

Sorry for being so tardy with this, but Google Docs refused to bend to my will until I gave up and read the instructions again. Apparently 14mb is more than the 10mb limit in every situation, even mine! So I cut a couple of fill-in pictures and got the ppt uploaded.

The theme for this week as we continued in "We Hold These Truths" doctrinal series about God, was His unchanging nature.

In the music part of worship, we debuted a new song by Tim Hughes

"Whole World In His Hands"

We did it for the congregation to open worship and then had then join as we repeated it.

So the set looked like this:

"Whole World In His Hands"
- break for welcome -
"The Heart of Worship"
"A Shield About Me"
-break for children's sermon -
"Be Thou My Vision"
"Whole World In His Hands"
-break for message-
"Jesus Paid It All"

Really thought the worship fit together well.

No One Seems To Want To Teach It, But...

... learning how to deal with failure is one of the most crucial skills any pastor needs to acquire.

How do you acquire it?

By failing.

Now what?

If failing brings you to the realization that your capabilities, intelligence, likeability and everything else you count as yours - isn't enough, then you learn to depend on Jesus. That my friends, is what Peter had to learn. Not to depend on his leadership abilities, and it appears from what we read that Peter was a natural leader, even though he had never been to seminary - (sarcasm noted) But to depend on Jesus.

Just a couple of examples -

Everyone who comes to your church is not going to grow as a follower of Jesus. Some may even be pretending to be what they are not. If your expectations are that everyone who faithfully attends and participates will prove to be mature when the going gets tough, then you are fooling yourself. People will fail to follow when pressure is applied. They will act in ways that reveal the shallowness, or even complete lack, of faith.

So if they have circled your discipleship bases and you are counting them as home free, the sudden realization that your youth group super star has impregnated the homecoming queen, or your deacon has been caught messing around may shatter you.

However, if you see your part of the work of the church as working with God - not in place of Him - then you'll be equipped to handle whatever comes.

I am not advocating a lowering of our desire to see everyone saved, nor am I saying we should stop working with all we have to see God glorified. What I am saying is to remember that we are all sinners.

We will fail.

It is then Who we call on, and Whose strength and wisdom we turn to when that happens that will determine whether failure makes us a more complete follower of Christ, or a disappointed and discouraged disciple.

To Love At All

“To love at all is to become vulnerable.



Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safely in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless space, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

- C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves

We just had a fright when Henley slipped on the kitchen tile floor and was unable to get enough traction to get up. So we worked to get him onto the rug under the kitchen table, and after a few minutes, he got up.

So far, he seems fine, but it got both of us to thinking - again - about just how much of our hearts are held captive by our friend Henley the Great Dane.

Choose Life

One of the real reasons I cast my vote for the person I did in the recent election was because of my convictions about life. I remain convinced that we are commanded to value life as a gift from God, not a choice or an option to be exercised at our whims. Dr. Bob is a doctor and a blogger who lives out his faith in Jesus and regularly makes connections that others might miss. Today was no exception. Here's an excerpt from a post you need to read and reflect on.

It is late, nearly 9 P.M., seeing a final consult at the end of a punishing call day, in the ICU. The patient, chronologically young yet physiologically Methuselan, lies in his bed, oxygen mask affixed to his face by heavy straps, bleeding, as he has for months, from a tumor in his kidney. He would not survive surgery, nor even radiological intervention to stem the hemorrhage by strangling its arterial lifeline. He is, furthermore, in the parlance of modern medicine, “non-compliant”: refusing treatments and diagnostic studies; rude and abusive to nurses and physicians alike; demanding to go home though unlikely to survive there for any significant length of time.

The nurse — young, competent, smart, hard-working, the very best of the modern nursing profession — apprises me of his situation, closing with this knockout punch: “You know, we just passed that initiative — you know, the suicide one. He’d be an excellent candidate.”

She wasn’t joking.

Taken a bit off guard, I responded that it is most unwise to give physicians the power to kill you, for we will become very good at it, and impossible to stop once we are

.

Read it all

This Is Why We Go To Macon

I go to see those two smile. :)

Light up a room - yes they do. Always have, always will.

Religion? Sorry, We're Out of That

Russian Knights Airshow

These guys are no Thunderbirds or Blue Angels, but they still are pretty darn good, and those are some sweet looking jets.

We now return to our regularly scheduled posts. :)

"Let It Be Christmas" Update

Hi guys, I wanted to go back and unpack for you what this series of messages and accompanying music by the Beatles is designed and purposed to do.

1. Lift high the name of Jesus.
2. Energize His children to tell people of His grace and invite them to worship with us.
3. Cause outsiders to consider drawing near to hear the Big Story of God's reaching out for them

I have pasted below the four week message themes and accompanying music. The idea of using secular music is not to worship using it. It's to provide a backdrop for the Light of Jesus Christ.

This will be a series of services where we will be taking on some of the questions that have been on the hearts and minds of people forever. For the last 40 years people (and really before that) have been asking themselves questions that the Beatles put to music. They are common questions, but they are important ones because they reflect the fears, worries, and helplessness so many people carry in this world. Christ can fill those needs and bring new life!

So we are going to begin a journey together looking at what God has to say about those themes that the Beatles raised in their music. And we'll show how the Incarnation - the coming of Jesus, can change everything!

So here are the messages and the music we'll use to set the tone and get people thinking.

* Week one - Nothin's Gonna Change My World (Music - Across the Universe)
* Week two - All The Lonely People (Music - Eleanor Rigby)
* Week three - I Believe In Yesterday (Music - Yesterday)
* Week four - You Say You Want A Revolution (Music - Revolution)

and Christmas Eve's theme? - Let It Be

Now, I want you to read this next sentence several times and commit it to heart.

If we let what we use overshadow what we'll be saying about the coming of the Christ child, and what that means to everyone - whether a Christ follower or someone far from God - we'll have failed.

It has to be about Jesus.

Think of this as the musical equivalent of Jesus pointing to the flowers and saying "consider the lilies of the field..." the everyday pointing to what ONLY God can do - give us peace.

If we can bring outsiders closer to people (Us) who are seeking to worship God and love their neighbors, and testify to them with words and expressions of love - and see the Holy Spirit draw them to Him... HE WINS!!! Glory to God in the Highest!

So pray with me.

David

Just A Reminder

He works on us in all sorts of ways. But above all, he works on us through each other. Men are mirrors, or carriers of Christ to other men. Usually it is those who know Him that bring Him to others. That is why the church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important.

It is so easy to think that the church has a lot of different objects - education, buildings, missions, holding services … the Church exists for no other purpose but to draw men to Christ, to make them little Christs.

If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose.

It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any
other purpose. - C.S. Lewis

What we have here, is a failure to communicate

Don't you love that comic strip? She really didn't get it, did she?

I had one of those hard conversations today.

You guys know the ones I'm talking about.

The ones where someone points out a flaw in your perfection. :)

There aren't many areas I would have claimed to have a handle on, but communication, especially the written kind, I thought was my little corner of the world. So much so that I seldom if ever run anything I write by someone else so I can gauge if what I meant to have conveyed actually, well... got there.

It's a pride thing.

And it's wrong, it's sinful, and it can hurt me in my passionate desire to follow Jesus and call others along on the journey.

My bride helped me see that today.

She must love me, and love Jesus, an awful lot.

Advent Conspiracy

This is one of those great ideas that is gaining attention and a voice. Churches who covenant with each other to seek to do everything they can to make a difference around the world in Jesus' name at Christmas.

New Hope has adopted five families locally and will be supplying food and some gifts during the holiday season. Our hope is that we can show the love of Jesus to people who may not know Him, and that by doing so, that love will grow in us.

I am convinced that one of the best things anyone can do to grow spiritually is to serve others in Jesus' name. So we are serving and will continue to look for ways to do more, and partner with other organizations to extend our arms toward others.

Small church with a big heart for God and for their neighbors = New Hope

But I Waaaaaaaaant it.

sigh...

While I have never been the shopaholic, I do love gadgets. For the most part I can fight off the urge to get the bright shiny toy, and try really hard to make do with less, I still have far too much of that desire to have in me.

All around us are people who are struggling not with wants, but with needs. We were able to help a mom and her kids this week who was living out of her car. New Hope got her a motel room, Bunny washed their clothes, we reached out to organizations that actually knew something about how to get help, and we hope that they are in housing tonight. We don't know because the woman had no phone. Things we take for granted - many people only dream of.

Lord, help me live simply. Help me to see the things you allow me to use as tools to do the work you'd have me do. And help me to help others.

From Outsiders To Insiders

“Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
Luke 2:10-14 (NLT)

Christmas is coming again.

The Greatest Story ever told will go largely unheard or unremembered as Americans focus on buying things they don't need with money they don't have and giving gifts to people they don;t even like. How can we get our story noticed among the cacophony of sounds and competing stories? Is it enough just to retell of Messiah's coming, or do we need more?

How can we be most effective - like the angels that first Christmas - at bringing outsiders like the shepherds - inside?

We're going to try something very different.



Let It Be Christmas - A story told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The idea is to take people from the secular - those experiences, feelings, and preferences we all have and share in common - to the Sacred - to the wonder, the mystery, and the grace-filled gift that is the Incarnation. To get them close enough to hear more this Christmas than Radio Shack jingles. To introduce them again to just what the Advent of Christ means.

Each week we would use a Beatles song prior to worship to set the tone and the message would follow a specific theme suggested by that song.

* Week one - Nothin's Gonna Change My World
* Week two - All The Lonely People
* Week three - I Believe In Yesterday
* Week four - You Say You Want A Revolution

Let me say upfront that there will be a clear explanation of the gospel every week and a call to come to Christ just as we always do. We won't water anything down. I think the effect of using the secular to highlight the sacred will do just the opposite.

And if we will invite our friends, if our youth will invite their friends, maybe people who have never really heard the true meaning of Christmas might draw near to Christ.

Outsiders to insiders. That's good news.

Exactly

"All types of churches should be simply missional. What we are advocating is for church leaders to distill their ideology of what church is to the irreducible minimum that defines a church as God’s gathered people, sent to a particular community as His redemptive gift to that community.

We need all types of missional churches–big, small, traditional, contemporary, with country music (did we say that?), hip-hop, some with guitars, some with organs. We need churches in homes and churches in well-marked buildings.

The container is not the issue. The issue is not staying contained." Ed Stetzer

Here's the money part of that quote.

A church is - God’s gathered people, sent to a particular community as His redemptive gift to that community.

New Hope Baptist Church is not buildings, a corporation, or an address.

It is a gift of grace to Valparaiso and its surroundings to serve as a beacon of hope and hands of love to the people we live and work with.

That "Love God, Love People, Serve All" - deal? Yeah, that's what I'm pushing because that's what God expects from us.

Hi there neighbor!

Just been praying through some community needs and outreach possibilities.

One of the ideas that keeps coming back around to me is using some of the land here at New Hope to offer community garden plots to our neighbors.

We don't have a lot of land that's not used, but I'd suspect we have 3/4 of an acre. If we partnered with the area extension agent and got some help from the local gardeners, maybe we could help some budgets stretch farther and have the opportunity to meet some of our neighbors on a regular basis.

If we tied it in with "Veggie Tales" activities for kids and their parents, who knows how much impact we could have.

Hmmmm

World of Warcraft Archive

I am not the gamer in this house, Sean is. At one time in the distant past I played some online games, and also played some shooters. But I stink at them and have very little patience for anything I don't do well. But lots of younger folks I know are into RPGs and so in my never ending quest to know, I picked up Sean's copy of the backstory to WOW and began reading.

This is a THICK book. Like GWTW thick.

The stories are standard science fiction/ distant past/ legends of yore fare. Strong characters are developed, and whole worlds are set into place. But I can't say that I was compelled by it to read more.

It isn't Harry Potter. There's no magic here.

Let the flames begin.

New Hope @ Worship 09 November 2008

With our youth and leaders away on a retreat today, it was trending a bit older than normal on the platform. But at least I was there to help demographically. :)

Our God Saves -great song that we did again after two weeks - lots of energy
Arise - praises Jesus, and helps us see Him as He is
Your Name - focus on the attributes of God
Forever - God is faithful
Amazing Grace - God is merciful. We sang every stanza



This was the fourth of a series called "We Hold These Truths" on the power of God.There were so many great scriptures and so many ways to approach it that I read, thought about and walked around with during the week, I wound up hitting several and nailing none. Note to self - preach A text, not all the texts.

God is able
He is exceedingly able
We is exceedingly abundantly able
To do
To do more
To do more than we can ask
To do more than we can ask or imagine

Would have been one way to approach it.

Well, to God be the glory and may His Spirit take my offering and use it to further His Kingdom advance.