Family Time and American Freedom

Time away to be with family and to relax a bit is always good.  We enjoyed more than a week with our granddaughter, keeping her tradition of being with us for New Hope’s VBS. This was her sixth year.  Then we met her parents in Tampa, and together enjoyed the Rays baseball game on Saturday night.  Fleda and I also visited a cousin of mine in Wesley Chapel, and we all visited Madison’s great-grandmother, who is in a nursing center in St. Pete.

Fleda and I enjoyed our usual quiet Fourth of July at home.  We watched the Independence Day celebration in Washington on the steps of the Capitol and on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

As we listened to powerful patriotic music, I thought about how securing freedom cost the pilgrims and the colonial patriots more than we can fully imagine. Then I found this piece by Robert Franklin, the president of Morehouse College.
 
“Before the original celebration of independence came great suffering and self-denial.  One hundred and fifty years before the Revolutionary War, the pilgrims of Plymouth (1620) endured brutal winters.  In fact, the history books indicate that 46 of the original 102 colonists perished from the lack of fresh food to eat and the inability to treat resulting diseases . . . . Think about it.  In the 1600s, Americans fought the elements to survive.  During the 1700s, Americans fought the British for their independence.  In the 1800s, Americans fought each other over the moral issue of slavery.  And during the 1900s, Americans fought international powers to protect freedom in the world.  In the days of the early 21st century, a divided nation would begin to slow march toward healing and unity . . . .  Then on 9/11, we were shaken to our collective core when a fateful attack killed several thousand.  I am proud to say, however, that in the fashion of our forefathers and mothers – with God as a directing force – we rallied to make sense of and learn from that devastating day in world history.”

I believe Dr. Franklin is right, and I pray that Americans will learn even more about how to seek God as a directing force and come together to find strength “at the broken places.”

Teaching Our Children to Know and Love God

Deuteronomy 6: 6 -7 says, “You must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.  Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.”  The words are about teaching ourselves and our children the commands of God.  What are those commands?

In Deuteronomy these are the top two:  “Hear!” and “Love!”

God’s people are to hear that the LORD who brought them out of slavery is the one true God.                                                                                       God’s people are to Love the LORD with all that is in them.

 

Our job as a church today is to teach the command to hear God.  We teach the truth to ourselves and to the next generation.  The one true God is Yahweh, the LORD, who brought his people out of slavery in Egypt.   We teach that it was this God who came to us in the Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus is the best look we have at God and what God is like.  We commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the command to hear and live by his truth.  We are disciples – learners and followers – of Jesus.  And we teach those who come after us this same command.  Jesus of Nazareth is our clearest way of knowing the one true God.  Listen to him.

We teach ourselves and the next generation to obey the command: “Love God with all that is in you.”  What do we love when we love God?  We love people.  We learn to love them with unconditional love, the only kind of love that counts.  It is unselfish. It cares about the other person’s genuine happiness without expecting to get anything in return. “This how we know what real love is.  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1John 3:16) 

At New Hope, we place the highest value on teaching ourselves and our children and their children to hear and love God.  That is why providing Bible study for children and adults is such a high priority for us.  That is why we need more space in which to do our teaching.

Friends and Trusting in God's Love

Henri Nouwen wrote,   “We need friends.  Friends guide us, care for us, confront us in love, console us in times of pain.  Although we speak of "making friends," friends cannot be made.  Friends are free gifts from God.  But God gives us the friends we need when we need them if we fully trust in God's love.

“Friends cannot replace God.  They have limitations and weaknesses like we have.  Their love is never faultless, never complete.  But in their limitations they can be signposts on our journey towards the unlimited and unconditional love of God.  Let's enjoy the friends whom God has sent on our way.”

God is the source of unconditional love.  Only God is Real Love.  We can be channels of it from time to time.  As Nouwen says, in our limitations we can be “signposts” to others on their "journey towards the unlimited and unconditional love of God."

I see in my life the truth of Nouwen's statement: "God gives us the friends we need when we need them if we fully trust in God's love." 

Not too far from where we live in DeLand is Blue Springs State Park.  You can rent an inner tube there and carry it up to the spring and float down the run on that clear, cool water.  The friends who understand Real Love and who have flowed into my life in recent years have given me the feeling of being carried along on the clear, cool stream of God's love.    

This past week, I had an opportunity to talk to someone about Real Love.  I offered to introduce her to "The Essentials of Real Love" Seminar on DVD.  Nothing gives me more happiness in ministry than teaching Real Love.  That is because I see so clearly that we can be the friends God sends into the lives of others, if they will receive God's gift.  I know that I have limitations and weaknesses, but I also know that I can contribute from time to time to the flow of God's love. I want to do that whenever, however, and as often as I can.  I see that you, my friends in God’s Real Love, can do the same. We don't replace God, but we can be friends to people who need us to be a gift from God. 

What the Mocking Bird Sang

Thank you, youth of New Hope. You led us in worship very well last Sunday. God bless you. We love you and look forward to having you lead us in worship again. Thank you Rachael Potter, Sarah Potter, Caleb Hinkle, Jaren Ford-Jones, and Toren Ford-Jones. Our thanks to your leaders: Leesa Holloway and Fred Griffith.

I am grateful to all of you who gave your time and shared your talents so readily at New Hope’s first Art Walk and Bake Sale last Sunday afternoon. Elaine Hardy conceived the idea, then, she and Kathy Stryker did a fine job of recruiting participants and organizing the event. The bake sale contributed $350 toward the Building Fund. We enjoyed being able to share our talents. We learned about each other. Some of you gave us a taste of your art or provided for us by means of your baking skills. My major contribution was buying and eating the baked goods. Thanks to all of you for your hard work.

Last Sunday morning there was a mocking bird up on at the peak of the roof of the A-Frame. That bird was singing loudly at 8:15, and I still heard him two and a half hours later as we entered worship.

According to what I have read on the Internet, male mocking birds are the most vocal. The singer last Sunday may have been a lonely bachelor looking for a mate. Maybe. But I heard that bird singing his heart out for us about what God is doing in New Hope. He was singing about our willingness to lay down our lives for one another, our desire to learn and grow together. He was singing about people coming forward at New Hope and saying, “I would like to see this ministry in our church and here is what I am willing to do to make it happen.” The mocking bird was not singing about how lonely he was. He was singing about how much God is blessing us. We are growing in every way you can measure growth: new believers in Christ, new members, new spiritual insights, dreams of the future, babies and toddlers, lives being changed toward Christ-likeness. That’s what I heard anyway.

It’s considered a sin to kill a mockingbird. Why? As Harper Lee says in To Kill a Mockingbird, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Resurrection Celebration

Henri Nouwen wrote a meditation called “Smiles Breaking Through Tears.” Many people mourning the death of a loved one have found this to be a healing image.

“Dying is a gradual diminishing and final vanishing over the horizon of life. When we watch a sailboat leaving port and moving toward the horizon, it becomes smaller and smaller until we can no longer see it. But we must trust that someone is standing on a faraway shore seeing that same sailboat become larger and larger until it reaches its new harbor. Death is a painful loss. When we return to our homes after a burial, our hearts are in grief. But when we think about the One standing at the other shore eagerly waiting to welcome our beloved friend into a new home, a smile can break through our tears.”

On this Easter Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection of our Master and Leader, Jesus, “the One standing at the other shore.” The news that he came back from the dead and lives forever gave the first disciples both a scare and the motivation to preach the Good News of a living Savior. The life of Jesus is our hope for new life, our courage to change, and the Spirit within us that makes us want to be a healthy church for his sake. And the resurrection gives us the strength to face the painful loss of our loved ones. He has defeated death. That is why on this resurrection Sunday we smile, sometimes through our tears and we proclaim, “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!”

New Hope Is Growing

We have come a long way. Our church is growing. I don’t want us to forget how far we have come. We have seen God’s work among us in powerful ways. To paraphrase a prayer that I’ve heard called an “old slave prayer,” We are not what we ought to be. We are not what we’re going to be. But, praise God, we are not what we used to be.

• Let’s remember that we have several young families with children who have joined us and become active in recent times.

• Let’s thank God for lives being changed.

• Let’s give God credit for bringing us out of debt and into an ability to put money in savings.

As we have been talking about, we need to add classroom space for our children, youth, and adult Bible Study classes. Now is the time for us to begin our Building Fund Campaign. We need to raise $60,000 in order to buy the classroom building we have voted to purchase. Look for informational brochures and Building Fund Offering envelopes coming soon.

Together we can and will further the growth we see taking place. We will make room for the numbers of people responding to Christ, learning to love God and people, and growing in serving God together.

An Image of Life Beyond Death by Henri Nouwen

Here is a compelling image of hope that many people have loved and held onto as they mourn a much loved person who has died.

"Dying is a gradual diminishing and final vanishing over the horizon of life. When we watch a sailboat leaving port and moving toward the horizon, it becomes smaller and smaller until we can no longer see it. But we must trust that someone is standing on a faraway shore seeing that same sailboat become larger and larger until it reaches its new harbor. Death is a painful loss. When we return to our homes after a burial, our hearts are in grief. But when we think about the One standing at the other shore eagerly waiting to welcome our beloved friend into a new home, a smile can break through our tears."