Listening During the Holidays

The holidays are hard on people who are mourning the loss of a loved one. Our sensitivity to their feelings is an important part of what it means to be the church. I think of Bible verses like, “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” Jesus who came to show us who God is stood with Mary and Martha after their brother Lazarus had died. He spoke words of assurance to them. Then as he moved among those who were weeping he did that which was most helpful to them. “Jesus wept.”

You may not shed tears with those who are grieving this Christmas, but you may have an opportunity to listen to their story. When you are with a person who is in deep emotional pain, they don’t need you to give them explanations or soothing words. They need you to listen. Real listening is a powerful act of love, blessing both you and the speaker.

God came to be with us in Jesus. He was called Emmanuel, “God with us.” The most important work you do for God this Christmas may be just to be with someone who is mourning. Your presence may be the channel though which the love of Jesus flows.

What Moves Us to Give?

Christmas is a time when we tend to be a little more enthusiastic about helping people in need. Why is that? We gave more than normal to Halifax Urban Ministry and to our own Benevolence Fund this past Sunday, December 6. What got into us?

Jeanne Mathieson, chairwoman of our Benevolence Ministry, told me that our offering amounted to $160. That is a pretty good offering for just passing around two baskets during the announcements.

I delivered our Communion Sunday bags of food to Halifax Urban Ministry. The men who helped me unload my car were impressed with the amount of food that was there. They unloaded it into grocery carts. Usually it only takes one cart. This time it took two. We were standing in a slight drizzle of rain. The carts were full. I received more thanks directed to our church than ever before. One of the men told me with a broad smile about the more than 300 hams Halifax Urban Ministry plans to give to people in need this Christmas season. I drove away feeling good about the help our church gave.

What is it that makes us delight to help others at Christmastime? Is it that Charles Dickens made us want to avoid being like Scrooge? Is it that ministries on the front lines are good at making us aware of how much need is out there? Is it the Spirit of Christ reminding us that the Good Samaritan fulfilled the Great Commandment, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” by helping a man in trouble?

Or are we responding to what God did at Christmas? Are we moved to give because God gave to us? “God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son.”

Forgiveness Preparedness

On October 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts IV carried his guns and his rage into an Amish schoolhouse near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Five schoolgirls died that day, and five others were seriously wounded. These facts are stated in the preface to Amish Grace, an inspiring attempt to explain the Amish response to the killings. Within hours after Carl Roberts shot the girls and turned his gun on himself, Amish community leaders were visiting his widow, his father, and his grandfather to tell them, “We want you to know that we will not hold a grudge against you.” Then parents of two of the little girls who were killed invited Roberts’s family to attend their funerals, and many Amish people attended the funeral of Carl Roberts. Out of their compassion for Roberts’s wife and children, the Amish brought meals to them and gave them funds to help with their expenses.

The media began to focus on Amish forgiveness more than on the horror of the event. Donald Kraybill, one of the authors of Amish Grace writes, “When forgiveness arrived at the killer’s home within hours of his crime, it did not appear out of nowhere. Rather, forgiveness is woven into the very fabric of Amish life, its sturdy threads having been spun from faith in God, scriptural mandates, and a history of persecution.”

If we members of New Hope Baptist Church are going to be found faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ when the worst happens to us, we must develop a process that promotes spiritual growth. We are going to have to become fully devoted followers of Christ who are radically different from the nobody-tells-me-what-to-do, pleasure-seeking world that surrounds us. We are going to have to become a community with traditions, rituals, discipline, and ways of teaching that will produce more than casual, unconcerned Christians.

The grace extended by the Amish was in their hearts and minds before this terrible event ever happened. Their way of life did not make much of emergency preparedness, says Kraybill. It gave them “forgiveness preparedness.” Their story raises questions for us. Are we members of New Hope being shaped by our faith in God, by what the Bible demands of us, and by our life together? Are we preparing for the uncertainties of tomorrow? Are we allowing the Spirit and teachings of Jesus to be so woven into the fabric of our life together that we are being prepared to forgive and show compassion when our time of suffering comes? How do we promote forgiveness preparedness in our church like that of our Amish bothers and sisters in Christ?

New Hope New Year's Resolution

I met on Friday with Vernon Buchanan, our Church Treasurer and Bill Batchelor, our Church Council Chairman. We looked at the proposed budget for 2010, which will be presented to the Church Council on December 17. The Church Council will finalize the budget and present it to the Church for a vote to adopt it on January 20, 2010.

As Vernon and Bill and I discussed plans and budget needs for next year, I asked Vernon if he, as Church Treasurer, had noticed any increase in giving during or since the three Sundays I preached on giving. I expected to get the answer he gave me. “No. There was no increase in giving.”

I asked Vernon, our Treasurer, what we could expect in income this year as compared to last year. He said, “Last year our giving exceeded our budget by more than $2,000. This year it looks like our giving is going to fall $25,000 short of our budget.” That $25,000 which did not come in through the offering plates came out of our savings.

Our budget is a way of setting our goals for 2010. Where we spend our money is simply a reflection of the things we intend to accomplish as a church. We will be emphasizing Sunday School, Small Groups, Children’s Ministry, and Youth Ministry. If we make it our goal to serve more people in the name of Jesus than we did in 2009, we will set higher spending goals. To put it another way, the ministry of New Hope Baptist Church will cost more in 2010 than it did in 2009.

I am going to recommend to the Church Council that, once we vote to adopt our budget on January 20, we ask each of our members to pledge an amount they will give to support the 2010 Church Budget. When we set spending goals we must give the money to meet those goals.

How about this for a New Hope New Year’s Resolution? With the help of God we will increase our giving to meet our ministry goals for 2010.