Knowing Your Opportunities

Lifeway Research and the North American Mission Board did a recent survey to find out when Americans are most open to considering matters of faith.  They asked 15,000 people about what times in life they would be most likely to engage in a spiritual dialogue.  Here are the results:

5. After the birth of a baby:  28%

4. After a natural disaster:  34%

3. After a major national crisis (such as 9/11):  38%

2. During the Easter holiday season: 38%

1. During the Christmas holiday season:  47%

In all the hustle and bustle of the season, we need to make sure we are not too busy to see people as open. We could miss some opportunities to witness that Christmas gives.  Pray for someone.  Invite someone.  Engage someone.  You could be a part of changing eternity.

What I Almost Missed

I moved somethings on my desk this week and found an envelope. Now I must admit I am a messy desk person.  I live by a sign I once saw, "A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind."  But as I came across this envelope that had been placed on my desk by someone I did not see and buried inadvertently in my busyness I found a wonderful note marking Clergy Appreciation month.  Yes, that was October and this is the end of November, it was buried well.

I opened the card and found a loving note of appreciation and enough money for me to take my family out for a nice meal.  Wow!  How long had that been there?  How many times had I passed over it, just inches from it but not knowing its blessing.  I was too caught up in other things.

How often are God's blessings like that?  They lay there unopened in our busyness waiting for the moment of our pausing to take care of "lesser things" -  like cleaning my desk a little.  It reminds me of how grateful I am to be where I am, to be the pastor of this church and to have people like you to share my life with. 

This holiday season I am going to try to slow down and savor the blessings that abound and the people that I am blessed with.  Oh, and I will clean my desk more often.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For the journey...

A Note I Keep in My Bible

Tuesday I did a funeral for a dear lady, Jeanne Bowman.  Jeanne has been a big influence on my life and ministry.  She was a person who knew how to get things done.  When a prison nursing home opened in the town we lived in, people were upset, many of those men held there had AIDS.  Jeanne found a way to begin a ministry to them by shopping for their needs with the meager funds they had left.  Most of the men there were terminal.  Jeanne witnessed to them and sat by them in their last days, often when there was no family to be found.

Jeanne had known her own losses, having to bury 2 of her six children. Her second son to die was murdered.  The killer(s) have never been arrested.  I wrote her a note after her son's death and mentioned Psalm 37.  Here is text of the note she sent me back:

Dear Tim,
Thanks for the note and your continued prayers - you know how much they mean.  I read Psalm 37 in the King James Bible and it is both comforting and promising.  Having friends and pastors praying for me has helped sustain my faith in God.  The older I get the deeper my faith in God becomes.  Do you remember the song Lewis Staggs (an older man in the church there) used to sing "The Longer I Serve Him?"  That is how I feel.  I can't find it in my heart to forgive the people who killed Robert, but I am working on it!  Thank you again.    Love, Jeanne

I pull that note out from time to time because I need that perspective on life.  Even in the hurts and the pains of this world, serving God can make life grow 'sweeter' as the song she refers to says.  I am grateful for having someone like that in my life.  I am grateful for the transparency of her saying she is not yet able to forgive her son's killers but I am also thankful for the faith to say in the face of such pain, with God's help, 'I'm working on it!'  For that kind of person, with that kind of faith, I am thankful that I knew her.  I am grateful she was in my life. I need to learn from her.

For the journey...

Where it is Tough to be a Christian

Where on earth is it toughest to live as a Christian?  Iran comes to many people's minds.  Last year, there were 85 documented cases of Christians being arrested for their faith.  Many reported being mistreated in jail.  Most have been released but are now under constant surveillance.  They face court cases that are still pending and fear is building among the Christian community in Iran about what may be coming next.

Iranian forces are watching Christians closely because there is a growth in the numbers of believers who come from a Muslim background.  Churches are being monitored by the secret police, some churches have even stopped meeting openly.  There are constant reports of Christians being abused physically and facing discrimination because of their faith.

What can you do?  You can pray.  You can pray for those still behind bars and two leaders who have just been released after 9 months in prison.  They are Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh.

What can we do?  We can gather to pray.  This Sunday we will be joining Christians world-wide to pray for the persecuted church.  As tough as it is in Iran, there is one place that experts say is far worse.  Find out this Sunday as we join to pray.

Ministry: Results or Effectiveness?

Pastor Bill Wilson's church is in a tough part of New York City. Wilson has been stabbed twice, shot at and had a member of his staff killed but still the church ministers on.

A lady from Puerto Rico came to know Christ through the ministry of the church and asked Wilson through an interpreter for a place to serve.  He assigned her to their bus ministry and told her to ride a different church bus each week and show love to the children as they ride to and from the church.  She said OK.

She would get on the bus, look for the worst looking kid, set the child in her lap and repeat a phrase she had learned in English, "I love you and Jesus loves you."  After a few times of doing this she came back to Pastor Wilson and said she wanted to stay on one bus with one particular boy who seemed troubled.  The pastor said OK. 

One day as the bus got close to the boy's home, he turned to the lady and said, "I love you, too."  He got of the bus and left her in stunned amazement.  Those were the only words he had ever said to her.  That happened at 2:30 pm.

At 6:30 pm that night, the boy's lifeless body was found in a garbage bag under a fire escape.  His mother had flown into a rage and beaten him to death and hid his body there. 

Some of the last words he heard were, "I love you and Jesus loves you."  On the last day of his tragic life he told her "I love you too."

The bus riding lady, who could not speak much English, had not produced great results in any statistical way but she had been very effective.  Sometimes there is a big difference between producing measurable results and doing something that is truly effective. 

Jesus never asked his disciples to produce any results.  He simply asked them to be obedient and from that He would make them effective. What do you evaluate your life and your ministry by - results or effectiveness?  We will take a look at this Sunday.

For the journey...

Fellowship: Its a Scary Word

Jesus had a plan to work through relationships to change the world.  He told his disciples, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."  John 13:35  The scary thing about this plan is that it involves you and me and how we treat each other being the basis of whether or not people believe in Jesus.

In a week where people in our country get caught up in phony fears and fake fright, this ought to be a real concern of the church.  Sunday we will focus on the fellowship function of the church.  We will also use this time to come together to observe the Lord's supper.  I pray that you and I will come having treated each other in a way that makes the world say, "I want to be a part of that."  It truly is scary to think of what happens when we don't and the world says, "I don't want anything to do with that."

Perhaps Francis Schaeffer said it best, "We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of oneness of true Christians.  Now that is frightening.  Should we not feel some emotion at this point?"

For the journey...

The Cost and Joy of Following Jesus

There is no way to sugar coat what Jesus said about being his disciple.  "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."  Luke 9:23  He tells us up front it will not be easy. 

What Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship brings that more into light, "To deny oneself is to be aware of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us."

But with all the reality of costs there is also the reality of great benefits.  Many people can try to sell you on the benefit side but it helps to go back to something else Bonhoeffer said, knowing that it comes from a man who followed Christ all the way to his death in a Nazi concentration camp.

"If we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us?  What decisions and partings will it demand?  To answer this question we shall have to go to him for only He knows the answer.  Only Jesus Christ who bids us follow Him, knows the journey's end.  But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy.  Discipleship means joy."

There is a cost.  There is a joy that makes it all worth it.  That is what we will look at Sunday.  As you come to worship Sunday, watch for a sign on containers that asks you to take one of the contents into worship with you.  It will be a way that you can mark your journey in discipleship.  See you Sunday.

For the journey...