For Christmas, Give Yourself Some Slack

Across the years of being a pastor, I have sometimes struggled with the fear that my love for the people of the church would not be enough. That is why I am helped by a conversation that I read recently. A man told his friend that his efforts to do loving things for his brother would probably not be enough, because his brother was so demanding and complained all the time. His friend said, “Give your brother as much care as you can and then do a little more in order to stretch your ability to love. “

The man worried, "What if that's not enough for him? I can tell you it won't be."

"Listen carefully,” his wise friend said. “If it's not enough, it's not enough. You can't give more than you have, anymore than you can be taller than you are. If what you have to give isn't enough for your brother, then you have to be satisfied with your efforts, even if he is not. We're obligated only to do our best to love, never to fill the needs of another person."

We may have people tell us that our efforts to love them--to care for them, be with them, and more--are insufficient. Sometimes they even imply that we as people are not enough. What I am learning is that our inability to be as loving as people sometimes need or want us to be does not mean that we are failures as Christians. We need to grow in our ability to love and accept each other, and be gentle with ourselves in the process.

Colossians 3:12 says, “God loves you and has chosen you as his own special people. So be gentle, kind, humble, meek, and patient.” Giving yourself some slack means being gentle, kind, and patient with yourself as well as with others.

This Christmas, gently push the limits of your ability to love others, but as you grow, be pleased with your efforts. Give yourself and God credit for the progress you see in your life. The Spirit of Jesus is there to guide you and to celebrate your growth with you.

An Amazing Church

What an amazing church! What an amazing year! Look at a few of the many people stepping forward to make this church go. (The list is far from complete. I don’t have time or space to include all who deserve recognition.)

Judy Hutchinson organized a gift of cookie boxes for the homeless. Our children decorated 140 small boxes. Our ladies filled them with the cookies they baked. Fred Griffith organized a workday. The hedges got trimmed, limbs got cut, debris and leaves go raked. Dalton Kirk organized a Men’s Breakfast. He is already planning the 3^rd one. Our nursery is full of babies. Our youth are performing tonight just before the Choir sings. Scotty Ford-Jones sets up tables and chairs every week. Trae Ford-Jones takes our food gifts to Halifax Urban Ministries every month. Lou Herouart takes pictures. Lois Cox writes notes to guests. Ruth Bradley gives information about us to guests. Erma and Garfield Dreas serve us meals on Wednesdays. Look at today’s list of Children’s Church workers that runs through February, thanks to Joan Wood. Kathy Stryker has set up a Facebook page for New Hope and is working on our web site. Elaine Hardy does Children’s Sermons and edits Connections.

Look at our financial situation: We are $12,419 ahead of our 2011 budget goal. We have commitments of $135,000 toward our 2012 budget goal of $140,000 (rounded off figures). We already have $12,500 in our Building Fund, which we just started.

These things have happened in 2011. Some of them were already in place before then. And before then, all the way back to the foundation of the world, God loves us. Today we love God and we love each other. 2012 is going to be a good year for New Hope.

New Hope in 2012

For 2012, we have committed to give $89,352 on 31 commitment cards. If you have not turned in your commitment, it is not too late. Just place it in an offering plate.

Wednesday night we adopted a budget for 2012. The total is $140,985. We hope to expand our space for Bible Study classrooms and have placed $10,000 in the budget toward a modular building that we are studying. We also expect to need more help in the nursery and have increased our budget for nursery workers. Based on our giving so far this year, we estimate that we will give approximately $160,000 next year. That means we will make good progress toward adding better facilities. We also will develop a “Master Plan” of the future of our facilities as we look toward the future.

We also voted to begin a Building Fund. I encourage all of us to give our budget tithes and offerings first and then give to the building fund over and above that amount.

I am grateful every day for you, my church, and my loving community in Christ. Thank you for the gifts you gave the church staff on the night of our Thanksgiving meal. We are grateful to be working with you to build a healthy church.

Fleda and I are glad that God brought us to New Hope. God has blessed us through you. Here is the best part of being your pastor: I get to study the Bible and try to tell you on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings what I think I hear God saying. You encourage me by your desire to learn. You encourage me by your listening, learning, and growing in Christ. It is obvious that you want God’s message to shape your lives and our church.

Expecting the Daylight on Its Way to Meet Us

Fleda and I experienced the joy of expectation while we were at her mother’s house in Easley, South Carolina on Thanksgiving Day. Christa and Matthew are expecting a baby in January. Matthew is our nephew, Fleda’s sister Mary’s son. I had the happy privilege of officiating at their wedding summer before last. Christa showed us the ultrasound picture of the girl she is carrying. We wait to see her face to face when she comes to greet us in the New Year.

Waiting in expectation is a powerful experience.

Christmas is coming and we wait together, expecting God to give us light and love. Paul writes about our expectations of God, "Brothers and sisters ... the moment is here for you to stop sleeping and wake up, because by now our salvation is nearer than when we first began to believe. The night is nearly over, daylight is on the way; so let us throw off everything that belongs to the darkness and equip ourselves for the light" (Romans 13:11-12). Expecting the daylight that is on the way to us means “throwing off what belongs to the darkness and equipping ourselves for the light?” How are we going to do that?

Throwing off what belongs to the darkness includes giving up these four things: trying to get people to like us, trying to control people with anger, withdrawing from relationships instead of working to make them more loving, and covering up pain with shallow pleasures.

Equipping ourselves for the light involves receiving God’s love so that we have it to give. If we are to live in the light of God’s love, we must find ways to receive God’s love and feel it. Then we become able to love as Jesus has loved us. John said, “Those who love their fellow believers live in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble” (1John2:10). There can be nothing more important for us to do here at New Hope than to learn how to love each other. That is how we will be equipped for the light.

As you plan how to use your time this Christmas season, please include time to be with your fellow believers at New Hope. Plan how you will receive and give love to them by listening, by showing that you care, by refusing to criticize, and by showing your joy in being together in Christ.

Give Yourself to God First

What does it take to be a generous person? Do you have to be rich, have more money than you need, and have lots of resources and time? Do you ever think to yourself, “Someday if I get some extra money, I’ll be generous, but right now, I have to concentrate on taking care of myself?”

The people in the churches of Macedonia (the northern part of Greece and southeastern Europe) were made up of people who believed what the Apostle Paul taught them about Jesus of Nazareth: He is the Messiah that God has sent, our best look at who God is. Jesus died and came back from death to show God’s power over sin: all the destructive ways human beings live, and over death itself. These believers were asked by Paul to give an offering to help people in Jerusalem, because food was scarce for them in those days.

Here is how the Macedonian churches responded according to Paul’s second letter to the Church at Corinth. “While they were being tested by many problems, their extra amount of happiness and their extreme poverty resulted in a surplus of rich generosity. I assure you that they gave what they could afford and even more than they could afford, and they did it voluntarily. They urgently begged us for the privilege of sharing in this service for the saints. They even exceeded our expectations, because they gave themselves to the Lord first and to us, consistent with God’s will.” (8:2-5)

Clearly, what made those believers generous was not having lots of money. What made them generous was that they “gave themselves to the Lord first.” When we give ourselves to God first, we begin to understand that all we have comes from God and belongs to God. We are just the managers of what God entrusts to us. God intends for us to live our lives with “an extra amount of happiness” and share with others what we have, whether it is little or much.

In order to do what God is giving us to do here at New Hope, we need to give generously to our church. What will make us generous is our joy in seeing what God is doing and then giving ourselves to God.

Real Love Drives Out Fear

A commercial airline pilot called Greg Baer to say that he'd broken up with his wife, his children were a mess, and he was miserable beyond words. The stress was killing him, and he was making mistakes on the job that were endangering his employment. "I don't think I can fly anymore," he said. "I just don't have it."

Greg told him the story of Jumbo the Elephant.

A baby elephant is born in the circus, but the other elephants laugh at him because of his unusually large ears and give him the nickname "Dumbo." Feeling like an outcast, his spirits are lifted by the friendship of a small mouse, Timothy.

Dumbo proves too clumsy to contribute to the elephant acts in the circus, so the boss assigns him to be clown, falling from a platform into a vat of pie filling. After getting drunk one night--that's a story for another day--Dumbo and Timothy wake up the next morning high in a tree. Timothy concludes that Dumbo must have used his big ears to fly there, but Dumbo doesn't believe it and refuses to jump from his leafy perch.

Timothy finds a feather and convinces Dumbo that it's magic and will give him the ability to fly. With the magic feather, Dumbo flies to the ground and returns to the circus, where he discovers that he has been assigned to jump from a much higher platform. Terrified, he jumps but loses his feather on the way down. As he falls, however, Timothy tells him that the feather was never magical, and that Dumbo had his own ability to fly. Dumbo pulls out of his dive, flies around the audience, and is hailed as a hero and star.

"Dumbo could fly,” Greg said to the pilot, “He proved that by flying up into the tree. But once he was there, he couldn't fly anymore, and only one thing prevented that: his fear. Fear distorts our thinking, alters our perceptions, and twists our behavior. You've already proven you can fly. There's no doubt about it, but you've recently been severely handicapped by fear--not primarily of flying, but of being a less worthwhile person as a result of all the unloving experiences you have endured from early childhood to the present."

The pilot learned to tell the truth and allow some loving people to see him, flaws, fears, and all. He found God’s love flowing to him through a number of people. His fears began to evaporate, and he's now flying--literally and figuratively.

Fear is crippling. As long as we're afraid--until we address the root cause of all fears--we cannot make full use of our abilities.

No human emotion is spoken of more often in the Bible than fear. The Bible wants to help us get over our fear. One instance of the Bible telling us that God wants us to get past our fear is 1John 4:18 which says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Attend the Real Love Seminar to learn how love drives out fear.

Love Filling Lives

Can anybody doubt the need for the increase of love in our world? Just today, October 20, 2011, the front page of the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports a city official arrested for beating a man and shattering bones in his face, parents allowing their teenager to keep marijuana and poisonous snakes in his room, and a man in authority using his power to secure sex from young girls. What is the cure for the destructive actions we read about in the paper every day? It is the love of God filling our lives so that we don’t keep trying to fill up our emptiness with power or pleasure or praise.

People who are in healthy small groups tend to increase their ability to love others. I see it in “Grief Support Groups.” As members of the groups share their experiences, discover what they have in common, and encourage each other, love naturally grows in their hearts. I believe this is what God wants for each of us and what God wants for our church: that we learn how to grow in our love for God and for others.

In our Real Love Groups, I see it, too. When people in the groups are able to tell the truth about their own sins and selfishness and talk together about how they are learning to gather the love they need and give it to others – even those who are angry and unloving toward them – they grow in love for one another.

Here is the Bible on the growth of love among members of the church in 1 Thessalonians 3:11 and 4:9 (Message). “May God our Father himself and our Master Jesus clear the road to you! And may the Master pour on the love so it fills your lives and splashes over on everyone around you, just as it does from us to you. . . . Regarding life together and getting along with each other, you don't need me to tell you what to do. You're God-taught in these matters. Just love one another! You're already good at it. . . . Keep it up; get better and better at it. “

This is what our church is about: learning how to let the Master pour on the love so that it fills us and overflows from us.

As We Grow: God's Tender Mercies

I don’t often change my sermon plans in the middle of the week, but this week I have done it. The reason is twofold.

1. Two young adults are ready to be baptized and talked to me about it Wednesday night.

2. We are observing communion today.

So I have changed my plans for my sermon today. It seems very important to talk to the whole congregation about the importance of baptism and of the Lord’s Supper and why we obey Jesus and do these two things Jesus told us to do.

The other day, I asked several people to pray for New Hope as we grow. We now have Sunday morning Bible Study Classes that need larger rooms. We have the potential to have three or four babies with us on Sunday and/or Wednesday, and we have only one baby bed in our small nursery. When you pray, ask God to give us guidance in answering the questions: How are we going to expand our buildings to match the growth we are experiencing? How are we going to raise the money we need to pay for that expansion?

Last Sunday as we dedicated Drew and Dusti Heil’s sons, Andrew and Ashton, we also dedicated T. J. and Stephanie Pullin’s daughter, Finley. Then we welcomed Drew and Dusti as new members of New Hope. Dusti came to us on promise of a letter of recommendation from another church. Drew came asking us to baptize him. We have scheduled his baptism for Sunday, October 23 at 2pm. Further details will be forthcoming. We give our thanks to God for all His goodness and tender mercies.

Armand: Man of Compassion and of Music

When I came to be the pastor of New Hope I was surprised by the amazing talent of our accompanist, Armand Melnbardis. I had never heard anyone play the keyboard with such a flare for making it sound joyful and relaxing. Before long, I also saw something even more important about Armand. He is a man of compassion who enjoys learning about how to have healthy and loving relationships.

Armand attracted friends to his concerts. Occasionally they would come to hear him play the keyboard and the violin in New Hope worship services. And then I saw him begin to attract friends to our Real Love Groups. He gave his time and attention to people who wanted to learn how God ‘s grace flows thought people when they are able to receive and give unconditional love.

Sindy Young was also from Latvia, died of cancer almost 5 years ago. Her’s was the first funeral I conducted at New Hope. Erma Dreas tells me that she remembers a time when Armand called and asked, “Will you take care of Sindy’s baby while we try to encourage her and bring her out of serious depression. He recruited help, offered his friendship and did what he could in a desperate situation.

The longer I have known Armand, the more I have developed respect for his compassion. When I started the first Real Love group at New Hope, Armand was there from the first meeting. Over the years I have seen him grow spiritually and emotionally.

Go with God, Armand. We will keep you in our hearts and pray for you to find a great church, people through whom God’s love will flow to you, and many opportunities to serve God by loving others unconditionally.

Parents and Church Promising to Bring up Children in the Faith

Because bringing up children to know that God is love and to be loving is so important to us at New Hope, I decided to post the responsive reading of promises that our parents and congregation made on Sunday, October 2, 2011. It was a beautiful Parent/Child Dedication.

Parent-Child Dedication: Stepanie and TJ Pullin Dedicate Finley. Dusti and Drew Heil Dedicate Andrew and Ashton.

Children learn from their parents to place a high value on the Church, the Bible, and living in the unconditional love of God. TJ and Stephanie, Drew and Dusti, as you dedicate your children to Christ, will you covenant with God and New Hope Baptist Church to teach your children the Christian faith, how to love without condition, and how to live as responsible children of God?

We will.

In Deuteronomy 6 the Bible instructs parents: “Talk about the commandments of God wherever you are, sitting at home or walking along your way; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night.” This is the challenge and the glory of parenting. Will you teach the commandments of God by your unconditional love, your words, and the way you live your lives? Will you love and teach, love and teach, love and teach, then, love and teach again?

We will.

The Bible counsels us to fill our “minds with and meditate on things true, noble, reputable, compelling, gracious – the best not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” Will you teach your children to fill their minds with such things and find joy in the life God is giving them?

We will.

Church family, will you give your love, encouragement and prayers to these parents? Will you, by gifts of your love that will include time, energy, and money keep on providing a church family, a place of worship, and Bible teaching for Finley, Ashton, and Andrew so that they may know the love of God, grow up in the church, and bear the fruit of the Spirit?

We will. Drew and Dusti, TJ and Stephanie, you have our support and our prayers as you teach your children to love God, love people, and be responsible.

Here are God’s words about being good parents: “A refusal to correct is a refusal to love; love your children by disciplining them. Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Do you dedicate yourselves today to the task of learning to fill yourselves with God’s unconditional, real love so that you will be able to discipline your children without anger and love them unconditionally?

With God as the source and this church as a channel of love and forgiveness, we will.

Armand's Farewell Concert, October 16

We are facing a change at New Hope. Armand, our Instrumentalist for 15 years, has announced that his last Sunday will be October 16. We pray that God will give him success in his new life as a musical artist, performer, and teacher. We have been fortunate for all these years to be blessed by his music. Now we are preparing ourselves to say farewell and give him our encouragement as he makes this huge transition in his life.

Change brings some feelings of anxiety, because we are stepping into the unknown, Armand much more than the rest of us. However, we here at New Hope will need to trust God for the future of our worship services and our life together.

Plan now to attend Armand’s farewell concert on the afternoon of Sunday, October 16 at 5 o’clock in our sanctuary.

Today we are giving our special offering to help World Vision provide food and supplies in the Horn of Africa where 13 million people are in need of emergency assistance. Every $100 we give could potentially provide 1,700 meals. World Vision not only provides emergency food, they also provide seeds, supplies and training to establish sustainable food sources. We want to open our hearts of compassion as Jesus teaches and do what we can to respond to this great crisis. If you want to give by check, make it out to New Hope Baptist Church and put on the notation line “Horn of Africa.”

Why We Have an Offering in Worship

I have never in my life attended a Sunday morning worship service that did not have and offering in it. Somewhere along the way the plates always got passed. We never have a Sunday morning service at New Hope without an offering. Why is that?

Worship is about feeling awe and wonder. I love the hymn “How Great Thou Art” because it stirs up my awe and wonder. I love walking on the beach at night for the same reason. A famous Jewish mystical writer named Abraham Heschel said that a basic issue in religion is what to do with our feelings of awe and wonder. He wrote, “Endless wonder unlocks an innate sense of indebtedness. Within our awe we only know that all we own we owe.” When I see how great God is and how small I am, I know that I don’t have anything that was not given to me. That is why it is good and even necessary to have a time in every worship service to give money as a way of acknowledging that we owe God for everything we own.

A writer named Alan Storey reflects on Jesus’ words, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21) when he says we have an offering in worship in order to relocate our hearts. “Do you see why we have an offering in worship? We do not have an offering to keep the lights on. We do not have an offering to pay the pastor. We have an offering because God knows that it is the one thing that can relocate our hearts. When we have an offering we give people an opportunity to relocate their hearts. Where our treasure is, there is our heart!”

When the plate is passed to you and you pass it on to the person beside you, remember:

We have an offering to respond to our awe and wonder.

We have an offering to relocate our hearts.

New Hope's Past and Future

On Wednesday evening after dinner at the church I sat across from Sarah, a guest, who said, “Tell me about this church’s history and it’s plans for the future.” Here is how I responded.

New Hope came out of South Daytona Baptist Church 15 years ago: August 4, 1996. They met at Spruce Creek Elementary School, then bought the A-frame and worshipped in it until they built the current sanctuary. Armand became the accompanist early on and has been with New Hope for most of its 15 years. Dennis (who was sitting beside me) has been minister of music for 10 years. Fleda and I came 5 years ago this month.

Part of the strength of New Hope is the people who have been members since the beginning. They form a loving core. They know each other well and care about each other deeply but remain concerned to reach out. When I talked to the Pastor Search Committee of New Hope five years ago, I asked them, “What are your hopes for the church?” They responded, “We want to reach younger families.”

I said, “If we are going to reach younger families, we have to prepare for and care for their children.” That is what we are working on for the future.

New Hope has always been a different kind of Baptist church, I said to Sarah. We are not a Southern Baptist church. We have always given our mission money to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which began in 1991 as an alternative to the SBC. We take the Bible seriously and want it to shape our lives and our church, but we try to understand the Bible in historical and cultural context. We differ with the SBC on how to interpret Paul’s words, “Wives are to graciously submit to their husbands,” (Ephesians 5:22). Nor do we say, as is now in the Baptist Faith and Message Statement of 2000, “The office of pastor is limited to men as taught by the Bible.” We believe God’s will for today is reflected in the fact that women are educated and taking leadership roles in every area of life.

Our young guest seemed to respond very positively to what I told her about us. She stayed for Bible study and talked to me afterward about how a church might reach young adults. Her daughter, Madison, a first-grader, was participating in our children’s program, and I believe they will be back.

Extravagant Hope

The prophet Jeremiah says God has extravagant possibilities for you and me. Every once in a while we feel the Spirit pulling us to do something new, something rare, something good. There’s a relentless spontaneity about it. Every once in a while we should act on impulse with just the faintest impression that we heard God say, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Brett Younger writes, “No day is without the possibility of a unique opportunity. If we keep asking, ‘What peculiar thing might God want from me?’ we’ll find ways to adore God.

“Try telling God,” Younger says, “that you want to live an out of the ordinary day. Pray more than an ordinary prayer. Pray that God will empty you of everything that isn’t love. Speak an extravagant word of grace to someone. Look for words so lavish that their face and yours will turn red. Read the Bible. Do something for your church that you’ve never done. Pick something that frightens you. Stir things up. Be the one who mentions Jesus during deacons’ meetings.

“Speak to someone to whom you’ve gotten used to not speaking. Sell something and give the money to feed hungry children. Give more than a reasonable amount. Be open to all kinds of extravagant possibilities. God may invite you to go beyond what’s reasonable. God will lead us to become better thinkers, better ministers, better Christians, to love the church, love Christ.”

These words about living on extravagant hope are for you, my New Hope family. Our church came into being 15 years ago this month. The God who called us into being wants to give us “a future with hope.”

Learning American History in Boston

When we toured Boston last week I learned some things about the history of our nation that I should have learned in school, had I been paying attention. Fortunately, Fleda and I had our granddaughter Madison with us as we walked the “Freedom Trail”. Madison has been paying attention to her history lessons. In addition, we had our daughter-in-law Tamara leading the way to some good restaurants when she was finished with the training she was taking at Lesley University. The lobster roll at the Union Oyster House was good but even better was the pasta we ate at Mother Anna’s in “The North End,” Boston’s neighborhood of more than 90 Italian restaurants.

On the Freedom Trail we saw Paul Revere’s House, the Old North Church, Park Street Church, and the USS Constitution. The enduring fame of the Old North Church “began on the evening of April 18, 1775, when the church sexton climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea and not by land. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution.”

Park Street Church, right across the street from the Boston Common, is known as the Evangelical Church of "firsts.” It is the location of the first Sunday school in 1818 and the first prison ministry in 1824. On July 4, 1829, William Lloyd Garrison gave his first public anti-slavery speech there. "My Country 'Tis of Thee,” was sung for the first time by the church children's choir on July 4, 1831, thanks to the leadership of Lowell Mason, Park Street’s Minister of Music. Among Mason’s more popular hymns were “Joy to the World”, “Nearer my God to Thee”, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”.

What Do You Want People to Say about Your Church?

I’ve been thinking about our church’s reputation: what do you want people to say about your church: It is a friendly church? It is a church where they have exciting worship services? You can hear good music there? You can hear good Bible preaching and teaching there? They have good food there on Wednesday nights? They have nice buildings and property? All of those are important. But I haven’t gotten to what I want people to say about us yet. Here is what I want people to say about New Hope Baptist Church: “People are being changed for the better in that church.”

Now, I know that in order for people to say that about us, they are going to have to spend time with us. We don’t change and become like Jesus overnight, so it is not something that people can see if they only visit us a time or two. But the Bible says in Galatians 5:19-23, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

What if someone stayed around New Hope and really got to know us for say three months? Would they see some members or regular attenders giving up such things as lustful pleasures, hatred, selfishness, and outbursts of anger and finding and sharing love, joy, and peace? I think that if they had eyes to see, they would see such change in some people’s lives here. I see it in some New Hope people. I pray to see more of it among us and believe that I will.

That is what I want people to say about New Hope. We see people becoming more like Jesus in that church, more filled with his Spirit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's 20th Anniversary

Fleda and I enjoyed the Annual Assembly in Tampa. It was a great time of reconnecting with old friends, attending meetings, and thinking about the history of the Fellowship. It felt right to celebrate how we came together 20 years ago.

I am glad I was there in Atlanta in 1990 for the first meeting of what we named the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991. There were three thousand of us. Our views on how the Bible ought to be interpreted, women in ministry, and theological education had been shut out of the Southern Baptist Convention. We were pastors, laymen and women, seminary presidents, missionaries, and seminary professors. We were determined to do something new.

One of the highlights of the meeting for Fleda and me was seeing and hearing the Moderator of The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship speak at a special CBF birthday party on Wednesday night. She is Christy McMillin-Goodwin, the Minister of Education at Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Fleda taught her in preschool Sunday School in Columbia, SC when I was the pastor of Greenlawn Baptist Church. Christy spoke of how her parents drove past other churches to be part of one where there was thoughtfulness and openness to God’s leadership in new directions. I baptized Christy when she accepted Christ as a young girl. Now she is an amazingly gifted and faithful leader in her church and in the national organization of CBF. Talk about a blessing. We saw the results of respecting the Spiritual gifts and abilities of women and of not putting limits on their role in church.

Our Language in the Immigration Debate

Have you ever thought about how the term “illegal aliens” indicates a prejudice against people who are in this country without documentation. To speak of people as “illegal” is to imply that they are out to do something to us. To call them “alien” sounds like they are totally different from us. Sometimes we talk about “aliens from outer space.”

Miguel De La Torre, in his book Trails of Hope and Terror, uses the terms "undocumented," "undocumented immigrants" and "migrants." He says, “Language discloses one's moral perspective and frames the political debate. Using the word "illegals" or the phrase "illegal immigrant" paints unauthorized or undocumented people as criminals. It's uncertain when our society started affixing the concept of criminality to Hispanic immigrants.

“What is certain is that our society does not affix illegality or criminality to other people who break the law. For example, we do not refer to those who break the speed limit as ‘illegals.’ When alumni break the ban on drinking alcohol on campus before and during college football games, we don't call them ‘illegals’ or ‘illegal alumni.’ Are jaywalkers, golf betters and underage drinkers called ‘illegals’?”

I heard a man who is half Guatemalan talk about the fact that there are many undocumented workers in America who are our fellow Christians. We need to think of them as our fellow human beings instead of thinking of them as an alien hoard that is pouring across the border. They love their families. They love their children. They want to find hope for their lives.

I know that we have an important debate going on in our nation as to what to do about people who are here without proper legal documents. I am asking us to think of them as human beings and know that many, many of them are Christians.

And I am asking us to let our thinking be shaped by the Bible and not exclusively by television and political debate. Here is what the Bible has to say in Leviticus 19: 33-34. “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

Thankfulness for Small Gifts

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote, “Thankfulness works in the Christian community as it usually does in the Christian life. Only those who give thanks for little things receive the great things as well. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts prepared for us because we do not give thanks for the daily gifts. We think we should not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must be constantly seeking the great gifts . . .. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the small (and yet really not so small!) gifts we receive daily. How can God entrust great things to those who will not gratefully receive the little things from his hand?”

What “little things” should we be thankful to God for? I think of three gifts that are “really not so small!” Scotty Ford-Jones gave a powerful, honest testimony on Sunday, May 29 telling us how God has used New Hope and changed him from angry to loving. Two couples have joined us in the last three weeks. B.J. and Fred Zercher live in Summer Trees. They come to us with great appreciation for our ministry and a desire to continue to grow spiritually. John and Bonnie Roberts drive from Holly Hill to be with us. They were members of New Hope in our earliest days and remember with thankfulness the care they received from our church during their grief over losing one of their sons.

It feels like summer because wildfires are breaking out, hurricane season is being discussed, snowbirds have gone north, and our offerings are down.

This is a plea from your pastor. Remember your church when you pay your bills. Remember your church when you look into your wallet. God has given you this church. Lives are being changed by God’s grace through your church. Love your church. Help your church do its work by supporting it with ten percent of your income. Give what you can and give it consistently. Give with thankfulness for the small things you receive every day. God will entrust great things to us as we gratefully receive little things from his hand.

Choose Joy

I was using a weed eater in our back yard. At one point--as I attempted to turn my body while backing away from the area I was cutting I tripped over a root and fell flat. Humiliated, I actually yelled at the roots for tripping me. Imagine, yelling at roots for simply being what they are. In that moment, I forgot roots don't reach out to ensnare me or trip me. They just grow in the ground to bring nutrition to the trunk and leaves of the trees.

Similarly, life does not intend to make problems for us. Life just IS, and we choose how to respond to--or proactively interact with--any element of it. This is more obvious with roots, but it's still true with people, who often appear to be doing things to us. But they're not. They're just being themselves, and on occasion we happen to get close enough to feel the effects of their choices, much as I discovered the effects of roots only as I chose to clear the ground with them all around me.

The people and things around us just ARE. It's not personal. We then have the power--the privilege, really--to choose who we shall be. Will we be irritated and miserable? Will we try to change the people and things around us, which never works in the long run? Or will we choose to be loving and happy? It really is our choice.

Our Calling Is to Bless

God provides blessings through many human channels of His love. Find ways each day to be aware of how much you need your brothers and sisters. Receive and give nurture, support, and love.

The Bible challenges us to bless even those who insult us. "All of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing"(1 Peter 3:8-9 NIV).

As I read those words I think about how hard it can be even within the church to not repay insult with insult. But that is our calling. As the Message puts it, "No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that's your job, to bless. You'll be a blessing and also get a blessing."

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was a very good day for us. We had a number of guests. There was an enthusiastic spirit of worship. I am thankful for the work that many of you did to get us ready for the day. Our thanks to Lou Herouart for taking on the lilies project and helping us to have that beautiful display around the communion table. And our thanks to Jim Suprenant for the work he did to clean out the plant beds in front of our sanctuary and in front of our parking lot. They look great. Bill Batchelor worked to make our sign communicate clearly the date and time of our Maundy Thursday service. By the way, I think hand sanitizing was a good image of serving each other. It may not have been as dramatic and time consuming as actually washing feet, but it was a way of serving each other that is well-known today.

The Choir gave of their time unselfishly. It was great to have that boost to our singing at the 9 o’clock service. I also thank you for your attention to our guests. It was clear to me that they were being given many warm greetings before and after the worship services.

As you can see in our numbers, our attendance at the 9 o’clock service was larger. Thank you regular 11 o’clock attenders who gave up your time and came at 9.

We will miss our snowbirds who are flying back up north these days. God bless you, keep you in His strong loving hands, and bring you back to us. We will miss you.

Some of you have recently read the Time Magazine article about Rob Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church and his book Love Wins. I have just finished reading that book, and I think it is a good one. Here is part of what Bell says about heaven.

"Eternal life doesn't start when we die; it starts now. It's not about a life that begins at death; it's about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death." Bell writes that life as we know it, with births, aging and funerals, is part of eternity. We are not merely being good to get into Heaven one day, but to bring Heaven to Earth today through how we live our lives. When we think of Heaven, we think of peace, love, health and the wiping away of every tear, but it doesn't have to start in the afterlife. It can begin right now. We can love more and let go of grudges. We can let peace rule our hearts and minds. We can bring Heaven to Earth everyday.

Halifax Urban Ministries acquired the STAR Center and Family Shelter in January 2010. STAR Center and Family Shelter provides direct services to local homeless folks and homeless families with children. Judy Hutchinson called and got us a list of the kind of things the Center needs for its people. In addition to the items we brought in today, we will receive an offering to help buy bus tickets for those who qualify. If a client has a verifiable job interview or doctor appt. they are given a bus pass for Votran. STAR/HUM gets a 10% discount from Votran when spending $100. All day passes are $3.00 and one way are $1.00.

Thank you, Judy, for the investgating and the publicity on this. Thank you, Trae Ford-Jones for delivering our food gifts to H.U.M

Forgiveness

When Jesus tells us that we are to forgive those who sin against us, he is not telling us to forget, to tolerate, or to excuse people. Forgiveness is not simply letting people off the hook. Forgiveness means these things.

1. I am not going to hurt the person who has hurt me. There are times when we want to make the other person suffer in the way they have made us suffer. Forgiveness means refusing to act on your desire to hurt the other person back. Here is what Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome (12:17-19), “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Forgiveness means leaving it up to God to exact a price from the person who has hurt you.

2. I set my intention to heal from the hurt that I don’t deserve. As long as I am angry and resentful toward the one who has hurt me, I am letting someone else be in control of my happiness. Forgiveness means I am not going to nurse and rehearse the injury. I am going to work to recognize that the past cannot be changed and I can make choices that will help me to recover and be happy no matter what the other person has done or is doing.

3. I recognize that Jesus wants us to forgive in order to keep relationships healthy in our church, in our families, and in all of our communities. Hebrews 12: 14-15 says, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Just two church members refusing to forgive each other can destroy the fellowship. A weed of bitterness gone to seed can destroy a garden that was once beautiful.

4. I accept what Jesus has done for me, and I let it flow through me to others. Thinking about how many times God has forgiven you can motivate you to forgive. This is the way Paul said it to the Colossian Christians: “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (3:13).

• Have you found it difficult in the past or in the present to forgive someone? What has helped you to forgive?

• What makes it easier to see other people’s guilt than to see your own?

• Is there a relationship in which you are in danger of turning a hurt into resentment or hatred? What will you do to stop that process?

Our Daily Bread: The Bread of LIfe

John 6:41-58

Preached at New Hope Baptist Church on April 3, 2011

It is good to repeat the words of Jesus when we gather for the Lord’s Supper. He gathered the disciples around the table and served them bread and wine that night before he died on the cross. “This is my body,” he said. “This is the new covenant in my blood.” We need to hear those words often.

But today let’s think together about Jesus’ words in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Jesus responds to the people who had wanted to make him king after they saw him feed the crowd with just five loaves of bread and a couple of fish from a little boy’s lunch sack. Jesus tells them, “You are interested in food that you can eat today, the kind that gives you some physical strength. But I know what you need. You need food that gives you life and lasts for eternal life.”

They talk to him about God having sent manna from heaven to feed their ancestors who wandered in the desert after escaping slavery in Egypt. They are saying, “You’re the new Moses. You give us a sign like that.” Jesus tells them, “That food was the kind that doesn’t last. You ancestors ate it and died. I am the bread of life. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.” Then he says words that are hard to hear even though we know he doesn’t mean them literally. “My flesh is real food. My blood is real drink. Whoever continues to eat my flesh and drink my blood… will live because of me. . . will live forever.”

In Jewish law, there is direct prohibition against taking blood in with your food. Leviticus 3:17 says, “This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood.”

Of course Jesus is not talking about literally drinking his blood and eating his flesh. Then what is he saying? It is about the Lord’s Supper. Right?

No. What we will do with the bread and the grape juice in a few minutes is a way of making visible what Jesus is talking about. His teaching and his Spirit are the food we need to nourish us. In that sense, we take Him into our systems and receive him as food.

As we read Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life,” we need to look at the whole Gospel of John to understand the context of those words. When you read it, you see that Jesus is constantly saying, “I am.” He is using images to help us understand how he can help us to find our way and build a life on eternal principles.

Just listen to the list:

1. I am the Light of the World. John 8:12 and 9:5

2. I am the gate for the sheep. John 10:7

3. I am the Good Shepherd. John 10:14

4. I am the Resurrection and the Life. John 11:25

5. I am Teacher and Lord. That is what you call me, and you are right. John 13:13

6. I am the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:6

7. I am in the Father and the Father is in me and I am in you and you are in me. John 14:11 and 20

8. I am the vine and you are the branches. John 15:5

All of his “I ams” are about what he will do for us if we believe in him, trust him, have confidence in him, His teachings are what we are to do in our daily lives.

Let’s think about what Jesus has told us really is life giving for us? What gives us life that will last forever? What is it that will not perish?

Jesus talked about it in his sermon on the mount when he said, Don't worry and say, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' The people who don't know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. Seek first God's kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well.

If we will receive it, Jesus gives us his guidance and his direct spiritual help to build our lives. He dwells in us to help us and show us the way to eternal life.

Here is a way of looking at it that I found helpful. This is from Eugene Peterson. Suppose you decide you are going to build a house, but you don’t know how. You take a course in house building. You buy books and go to Internet sites that give you lots of training on the subject. You get the blueprints and buy the materials that you need for your house.

One day you begin. The lumber is delivered, and you lay the foundation. You struggle by yourself day after day. The walls begin to go up, and you start on the rafters. But as the house grows and as you start cutting openings for windows and setting partitions you find that there are some things you have forgotten or still don’t know. You go back more and more to your books. Things don’t seem to come out right. When you saw wood the cut is often not straight or comes up measured wrong. The wood splinters. You seem to be all thumbs.

Like all do-it-yourselfers, you have some neighbors who come by each day and stand around and make small talk. They have suggestions. “That wall seems to be out of plumb. Are you sure that is the way to set a window casing?” They make you nervous. Every time they shows up you are reminded of the badly cut boards, the bent nails, and the times you failed to follow the blueprint. One day you finally say what is on your mind, “I don’t need your advice. I need your help!”

Suddenly, they have busy schedules and things on their calendars that they just can’t miss.

But then one day, by chance, a skilled helper comes along. He rolls up his sleeves and gets to work actually helping you and sometimes saying, “If you do it this way, it will work better.” You find yourself enjoying his company and learning more than you ever thought possible. He is not there to give you condescending advice. He comes alongside you to help and teach.

His presence doesn’t mean you don’t make any more mistakes. You still feel the tension of what the house could be and the imperfect outcome of your efforts at building it. But it goes way better and you are happy and at ease, because someone who can help you has come not to say, “That doesn’t look right to me. You better go back to the blueprint. You’ve got that out of line there.”

No. He has come to help and to teach.

That is what Jesus does as the giver of food that lasts. He will come into the mess and scramble of lumber in our lives and work with us. He doesn’t stand to one side saying, “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

If you trust him and align with him, he will work beside you and help you to build your life.

Here is another image Jesus uses: Water. He said to a woman standing at Jacob’s well in Samaria, “"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give will never be thirsty. The water I give will become a spring of water gushing up inside that person, giving eternal life." (John 4:14)

I was shopping for a few groceries the other day, when one of our younger members called me back. I had just called a couple of hours before that to check on him. We had a brief conversation in which he really accepted the fact that I care about him. I put my phone back in its holster and I thought, I feel really happy about the way that went. I feel energized. I went up to the check out and saw those little bottles of stuff called “5 Hour Energy.” I thought, I’ll bet I have gotten more energy from the conversation I just had and a few others in the last 24 hours than is in that little bottle.

While Jesus was talking to the woman at the well in Samaria, his disciples had been off buying something to eat. He offered her the living water that would quench her thirst forever. He talked with her about her life and the mistakes she had made. He talked with her about God. Another way to say it is he loved her. She went back to her town to tell her people about this man.

When the disciples got back with the Publix subs they urged Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But Jesus replied, “I have a kind of food you know nothing about.”

“Did someone bring him food while we were gone?” the disciples asked each other.

Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. (John 4:31-34)

That is the nourishment Jesus was talking about when He said, “I am the bread of life.” He will give it to you.

It is up to you to take him at his word, put our confidence in his love for you, get involved doing God’s will, putting God’s kingdom first, paying attention to what God is doing right now in your life.

A man went to an African country to be a teacher in a missionary school. He had been a track and field athlete in high school and college, so he was made the track coach. He has a young man on the track team who was his best runner. His speed won a number of races. But one day when they were competing against another school, this one who normally won, looked like he had his feet in cement. He was running a 400 meter race and was falling far behind. But just as the runners were coming around the last lap, he put on an amazing kick. It looked as if he found energy that had just not been in him that day.

After the runner got his breath, the coach asked him, “What happened? You looked like you were about to lose and then you got this amazing spurt of energy. Where did that come from?”

Looking at his coach and teacher, he said, “You know how you always tell us that Jesus is available to help us if we just call on him? Well, I thought of that as I was falling behind in the race. So I just started saying to Jesus, “You pick ‘em up and I’ll lay ‘em down. You pick ‘em up and I’ll lay ‘em down.”

Here is the deal: You can’t buy the pure love of God that gives you energy. Jesus is offering it to you in all of these images and figures of speech. God loves you today and wants to give you

guidance where you don’t see the path,

security when you feel threatened,

truth about what can hurt your relationships and what can make your relationships more loving,

truth about how to treat people,

love that you can give to others,

spiritual energy, an amazing supply of it that comes from being loved and loving others,

and

life that lasts forever.

You can have all of that, but not if you are trying to deserve it trying to get other people and God to think you’re wonderful. Either you receive it as a gift because you put your confidence in what Jesus says and does or you can’t have it at all.

Once you put your confidence in Jesus, you will have times when you are amazed at how much energy the Bread of Life gives you. Obeying his teachings and receiving his love won’t make you perfect or make you feel energetic all the time, but you will know that it nourishes you every day like daily bread and gives you life forever.

So now we take the bread, bless it, break it, and give it to each other. This is Jesus body and blood. It is the nourishment of life. Whoever eats this food will have eternal life beginning now and forever.