Grief and the Resurrection

One of the most rewarding things I do as a pastor is to lead grief support groups. Our recent group here at New Hope has been especially meaningful. We found that spending time together trying to understand grief helped us all. We were able to love and encourage each other. We will start another grief support group soon.

At Easter we celebrate God’s resurrection power. It is about much more than our positive thinking. It opens us to a power and grace beyond us. Since God raised Jesus from the dead, we know that there is life beyond death for our loved ones.

God’s power breaks into our world to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Whenever we trust in God’s care for us and share it with each other, as in a grief support group, His resurrection power breaks into our lives. In the peace God brings to us in the midst of our grief, we receive resurrection power. God brings healing to our aching emotions.

Thank God for giving us this family of faith we call New Hope. In it we have the privilege of sharing each other’s sorrows and joys. As we care for each other, we experience God’s resurrection power at work among us.

Easter Season

I’m glad we are getting close to Easter for spiritual reasons and for earthly reasons. First, the more personal, earthly reasons: I am glad Fleda is getting a Spring Break from school so that we will have some time together with family. I am glad the warmth of spring is arriving. My Florida blood craves it. I have already enjoyed seeing downy Sand Hill Crane chicks, Tom turkeys fanning out their tail feathers for their harem of females, and hearing owls hooting in the night, calling for a mate. My spiritual reasons for being glad to welcome the Easter season include that we are preparing ourselves to experience the power of the Resurrection of Jesus. Before we get to the day of resurrection, we focus on examining our own hearts. Some Christians observe Lent, the forty days before Easter as a time to fast or to “give up” something for Lent. I, like most Baptists, did not grow up in that tradition and just don’t “do Lent.” During this season of preparation for Easter, I have been studying the images of God that are in the Bible. I’ve been trying to teach some things about those images on Wednesday nights to help us have a clearer awareness of who God is and what God does for us.

I am thankful to new member Shane Gaster for introducing us to a service of darkness for Good Friday. Dennis Bucher and I had been talking about just such a service. It will help us experience something of the suffering, the fear, and the mystery of Jesus’ agony as Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him, the other disciples deserted him, and Roman soldiers nailed him to the cross.

Writer Ron Rolheiser points out, “Interestingly, the gospels do not focus on his physical sufferings (which must have been horrific). What they highlight instead is his emotional suffering and his humiliation. He is presented as lonely, betrayed, alone, helpless to explain himself, a victim of jealousy, morally isolated, mocked, misunderstood, stripped naked so as to have to feel embarrassment and shame, and yet, inside of all this, as clinging to warmth, goodness, and forgiveness. Good Friday, in Luke's words, is when darkness has its hour.”

On Good Friday night, April 2 at 7:30 we will gather in our sanctuary to worship God using scripture readings, music, poetry, light, and darkness.

May our Good Friday Service of Darkness bring us the consolation of having Jesus identify with our own emotional suffering. May his being with us and his sacrifice for us bind us to God, so that His warmth, goodness, and forgiveness flow out of us.

Living One Day at a Time

As I talked the other day in the hospital with our member Ben Bailey about the diagnosis of cancer he had just received, we talked about how he accepts that, as he said, “It is what it is.” I admired Ben’s attitude and determination to accept and make the best of his days. Then I ran across this piece on seeking to live right each day. It is from a much-loved pope.

Do you remember when the Romans Catholic Church began to change after Vatican II back in the 60s and 70s? The Pope who led the change was Pope John XXIII. He put together what he called his Ten Commandments for Today. They are what he wanted for himself in his daily life:

1) Only for today, I will seek to live the livelong day positively without wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once.

2) Only for today, I will take the greatest care of my appearance: I will dress modestly; I will not raise my voice; I will be courteous in my behavior; I will not criticize anyone; I will not claim to improve or to discipline anyone except myself.

3) Only for today, I will be happy in the certainty that I was created to be happy, not only in the other world buy also in this one.

4) Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes.

5) Only for today, I will devote 10 minutes of my time to some good reading, remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.

6) Only for today, I will do one good deed and not tell anyone about it.

7) Only for today, I will do at least one thing I do not like doing; and if my feelings are hurt, I will make sure that no one notices.

8) Only for today, I will make a plan for myself: I may not follow it to the letter, but I will make it. And I will be on guard against two evils: hastiness and indecision.

9) Only for today, I will firmly believe, despite appearances, that the good Providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world

10) Only for today, I will have no fears. In particular, I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe in goodness. Indeed, for 12 hours, I can certainly do what might cause me consternation were I to believe I had to do it all my life.

I think this list will help anyone who wants to live life with love, joy, and peace one day at a time.

Sermon Plans for March and April, 2010

March 7 Never Waste a Crisis: The Testing of Your Faith James 1:2-4 This message will use the Joseph story in Genesis 37 to lead us to think about God’s power to help us in times of crisis. God will use the trials we face to make us stronger.

March 14 Never Waste a Crisis: Plan B Romans 5:1-5 This will be a continuation of the Joseph Story to talk about God’s power to help us in our toughest times.

March 21 Flow of the Spirit: Rivers of Living Water John 7:37-39 The beginning of a series on how the Holy Spirit will flow in our minds and in our living if we don’t quench the Spirit.

March 28 (Palm Sunday) Shane Gaster, Guest Preacher

April 4 Christ Is Risen Indeed 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 An Easter message on the historical reality of the Resurrection and the impact Christ’s Resurrection makes on us.

April 11 Flow of the Spirit: Beyond Resentment Colossians 3:1-10The Spirit will enable us to change and grow away from our tendencies to become angry and resentful.

April 18 Flow of the Spirit: Beyond Anxiety Psalm 23 The Spirit will enable us to grow toward trusting God and living a life of love and power.

April 25 Flow of the Spirit: Humility Luke 18:9-14 The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector will be the basis of a sermon on recognizing the truth about ourselves and learning to tell the truth about ourselves: I am a sinner in need of God’s mercy.

Laying a Foundation for a Loving Community

We are growing on Wednesday evenings, too. If you were here last Wednesday evening you may have noticed that there were more children and youth than ever. The decibel level was higher than usual because their young voices reflected excitement. I am grateful for the fact that so many children and youth are coming to New Hope. They are with us because of the preparations made by Cheryl Secunda and her leaders. Wasn’t it great to hear that group of older children recite from memory all the books of the New Testament a couple of weeks ago? Our thanks to Leesa Holloway and Erma Dreas for teaching them. And we thank Joanne Kirk, Beth Gibbons, Kelly Secunda, Debbie Shelver, and Fred Griffith.

What we are seeing is the fulfillment of this truth: Children (and people of all ages) will come when they know that they are cared for and have been prepared for.

When you see Jim McCroskey thank him for all he has done to get our building and grounds in shape. Our playground equipment was acquired by Jim as a gift from the City of Daytona Beach Shores where he is Assistant City Manager. The lights in the parking lot and along our sidewalk also came from Jim’s work on our behalf. We got a huge bargain on them. Jim led in the installing of our lights and of our playground equipment.

Two weeks from today, March 14, we begin our Laying a Foundation for Growth Campaign. The purpose is to give as much money as we can in March to pay down our mortgage debt. You will see the bricks building up as we give above our regular budget offering. We are building not buildings yet. We are building a loving community.

Love and Hell

On January 24, I preached a sermon in the meaning of hell. I got more requests for that sermon than any I have preached at New Hope. The subject of real love has dominated my thinking for at least three years now. Dr. Walter Shurden, Chairman of the Department of Christianity at Mercer University until his retirement a couple of years ago, has helped me to understand how living without real love leads to hell. In a meditation on how the author of The Shack plays on the theme of “living an unloved life,” Dr. Shurden brought together the relationship between living unloved and hell. He wrote,

“At least part of what it means to be “lost” is to live as though you have never been loved. All are children of God, but some have resisted the embrace . . .. When we live unloved lives we end up overreaching like Adam, lying like Eve, manipulating like Jacob, being fearful like Saul, living unbuttoned like David, amassing like Solomon, denying like Peter, boasting like Paul, and killing ourselves like Judas. Living unloved, we end up puking in alleys, bed-hopping, living self-destructive lives, buying till it hurts, climbing ladders made of others’ heads, building barns too big to live in, confusing ambition with vocation, hoarding rather than sharing, hating folk who don’t look like us, driving by Lazarus, and using rather than serving people. To tell the truth, we end up on trash heaps on the southwest corner of Jerusalem. They called it Gehenna. We call it Hell! We end up as waste, and we waste the only life given to us. That is hell: waste.”

I know some people who are living unloved. They are lost. They are on the way to wasting the only life they will ever have. They are resisting God’s embrace and the embrace of the human channels through which God’s love flows. I pray for their salvation from the trash heap, from hell.

Young People Need Our Love

Last Sunday morning, January 31, we had eight young people singing in our worship service. Wednesday night I talked with one of the girls who came down front at the invitation time to say she wanted to join our church. She is twelve years old. She comes to church without either of her parents. Our youth group gives her a feeling of acceptance.

As I walked into the youth room in the A-frame to find her, I noticed that there were at least four new young girls there whom I did not know.

Here are some of the thoughts that came into my mind: Why are these young people coming on Wednesday night in such numbers? And what are we being called to do to care for them? What is God doing? Are they learning here at New Hope that God loves them and has a purpose for their lives? Can they grow up to serve God when they have very little encouragement from their parents to continue in church? How can we help them to be growing disciples of Jesus Christ?

I am thankful for the work that Cheryl Secunda, our Director of Children and Youth Ministries does to bring in young people. God seems to be sending us young people between the ages of 11 and 14. How can we join God in what God is doing? How can we provide spiritual care and guidance for these young girls and boys?

When you pray, please ask God to send us the leaders and the healthy, caring people we need to show these young people that their future as Christ followers really matters to us. Ask God to help us to find ways to give them the care and the guidance they so much need. Do you see what I see?