Because it’s what Neighbors do…

To the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy, starting this Sunday we are going to open our facility to the Church of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, in Spanish, el Senor de los Milagros (Lord of Miracles Church).  We will worship at 10 am, they shall worship at noon.

They are worshipping in our church because their church burned down on Monday.  I am not putting out this post to toot our own horn or to seek accolades, but to let you know what we are doing.  Because it is Different from how we usually do things.

I went to the church site on Monday morning, when things were still smoldering.  I found out the pastor was okay, that nobody had been hurt in the church, that the surrounding residences were okay, and I stood there and the question I asked was, “Where are they going to worship next Sunday?”

It is the question that would be first on my lips if something happened to our church that hurt no one.  Of the sixty plus churches in Perth Amboy, the reason we are doing this is because, simply put, “This is what neighbors do.”

I told the Father that he had the use of the facility through the end of 2013-specifically, through Christmas- if he so chose with an offering of whatever they could give.  If they will continue with us into 2014, we will negotiate something more formal.

What I am most proud of is that when I put the question out to our leadership, every one of them said we should proceed.  Not a question of not helping.  This is what neighbors do.

St. Cyril and St. Methodius is on Jacques Street, a block off Hall Ave., near the Schull School.  It is a National Polish Catholic Church, unaffiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.  When I find out more about what that means, I will let you know.  The pastor is of Polish background, reading a Spanish service to his congregation.  In addition to this church, he serves a church in Howell and in Dunellen.  We can expect between 30 and 40 to worship in our church.

At this time, the church does not run other programming, so there will not be a need for more space.  They have a hall that they rent, but because of our church’s rule about no alcohol in the church, we shall not be in a position to host those events.

I do not know what else they are going to need.  They simply have a place to worship this Sunday.  That is the first step.  We’ve never hosted another church in our sanctuary.  We will keep open clear lines of communication to make sure any problems can be dealt with quickly and effectively.

The Chaplain Corps is going to be seeking to organize more help as needed.  I believe we have done something quite wonderful for a sister church.  Please let me know if you have any questions about what we are doing.

We are a Neighborhood in God's Kingdom.

What Do You Need Before You Ask For Directions?

Hypothesis: Our congregation lacks a compelling and widely shared vision of what God is calling it to be and do as it moves into the future. Without a fresh discernment of God's vision for us, we risk being irrelevant to God's mission in our contemporary time and place.

 This is the eighth challenge identified blocking churches from being transformed into powerhouses of Jesus’ Spirit.  How does it affect us?

 Imagine stopping for directions.  Isn’t that what all husbands are charged with never doing?  Of course, in a generation with GPS, maybe we don’t have that joke as often as we used to.  But even if you have GPS, imagine having to set it.

 You need to know where you are going.  Otherwise, you are driving in circles, or off a cliff.

Churches too need to know where they are going.  It is a guide for what we are then going to do as a community of faith.  For us, it isn’t a destination on a map, it is a statement of vision, of purpose.  It is a manifesto declaring why it is we do what it is we do.

Jesus had one, drawn from John 10.

“I am the Great Shepherd.”

That Vision, that metaphor, that statement, for me it encapsulates Jesus’ entire ministry.  He lays down his life for his sheep, he knows his sheep and his sheep know him, he is their protector and their guide.  He is not some hired fellow who runs when the going gets tough.  Jesus’ teachings, his healings, his miracles, the way he built up his followers, all can draw from that central image of him as the Great Shepherd.

There are other images that Jesus could have used as his central vision, other things that he is referred to in the Bible.

His central vision could have been that of “Teacher”, because he certainly did teach us.  But Jesus was so much more than just a teacher.  He cared for his people, he lived among his people, he did for them.

His central vision could have been that of “Judge”, because the bible records that the judgment of the people has been passed by God to our Lord Jesus.  But the Judge pronounces sentence and carries out justice on the sinful in the world.  And “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  Jesus lived mercy, not judgment.  The declaration by many Christians today that boils down to “Believe or Hell” is not what Jesus did.

Churches following in the footsteps of Christ will follow in how Jesus created his ministry.  They too need to know where they are going.  Not every church is going to have the same vision, the same purpose.  Not every church can be everything to everyone.  Only Jesus can be everything to everyone, and he has the advantage of being God!

We are a Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom.  That’s our vision, our purpose.  How well can we take it and let it lead us into our ministry for Jesus Christ?

 

 

The Community Prayer from the 2013 Sandy Commemoration

I had the privilege of giving the Community Prayer at the 2013 Hurricane Sandy Commemoration in Perth Amboy, NJ.  Here is that prayer.

Let us pray,

Dear God, one year ago, we didn’t know.  We didn’t know what the storm would do.  We didn’t know what we’d have to do to survive.  We didn’t know how long it would last, where it would go, what it would leave in its wake.  One year ago, a Hurricane of unimagined proportions, riding through a set of circumstances called unique by the forecasters of the time, bore down on us.  We didn’t know what we were going to go through.

And we, here, some would call the lucky ones.  The communities of Middlesex County most affected, Perth Amboy, Carteret, Woodbridge, South Amboy, Sayreville, Old Bridge, and South River, some call lucky compared to what happened in Ocean County and in Monmouth County and elsewhere.  We do not come before you tonight as a community that feels lucky.

Neither did the police and fire and emergency services who responded that night and in the days to follow, the first response agencies, the churches and faith communities, the nonprofit agencies, the companies, the utilities, people from the local, county, state, and federal governments, all of those people did not come to us, did not leave behind their own families and loved ones because we got lucky.

Dear Lord, to you we offer our fears, to you we offer our brokenness, to you we offer our grief, to you we offer our helplessness, our experiences, our traumas, our aftermaths, our pain, and our distress.  Tonight we commemorate the hurricane that changed Perth Amboy forever.  We do not forget our brothers and sisters in other communities, in other counties, in other states, we do not forget what they have gone through because of this storm.  No, we stand with them in You, we stand together, we join together, we remember together, we rebuild together.

One year later, we celebrate the power You place in the human spirit.  We celebrate what you have created in us dear Lord that has enabled us to rise above.  Maybe, perhaps, we even dare to thank you for sending that storm to remind us of the power that we can have when we are not so boxed into our lives, not so focused on our own needs, not so selfish in the accumulation of things, to remind us of the true power of humanity that comes when we unite in love and care and concern to put the needs and lives and troubles of others before our own needs and concerns.

How many times must we come through tragedy to muster the groundswell, to grow the grassroots, to build our efforts for the better, for the greater good?  We commemorate Sandy this night, but we also remember the other times when we have risen to greater heights.  We remember the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, we remember the days in 1951 after the ammunition ship explosion in South Amboy, we remember the service of women and men in our community in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Vietnam, in Korea, in the Second World War, and in every battle and skirmish in between, we remember every event of terror and destruction and fear and brokenness in our lives not to commiserate, not to plunge again into depression, not to cast our eyes down and surrender. 

No Lord, we remember each instance not for how it tore us down, but we remember how we came back together and rebuilt our lives, our families, our communities, our nation, into something greater.  We remember those lowest times that led us to climb to the highest moments of care and commitment and courage.

Tonight we commemorate that storm not because of how it broke us down but because of how we have come back even stronger by the power of love and care and concern.  Yet even as we remember how we have overcome, we do not forget those still haunted by the storm, those still struggling to rebuild, those still trying to overcome the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual traumas that the storm brought in its wake.

There are people out there who cause more pain to survivors now then the storm ever did.   There are survivors of the storm who, to this day, feel that they are more at the mercy of an insurance company more interested in profit than people, people who feel that they are at the mercy of governmental bureaucracies, people for whom our gathering and commemoration tonight would feel like a slap in the face to their own pain and suffering because they have not yet come to the place where they are stronger than the storm.

Lord, we reach out with our hearts and prayers to each of those people, we ask that you would lead us to them that we may continue to extend the hand of strength, the hand of care, the hand of love, and the hand of community so that this Storm does no more damage in the lives of our neighborhoods.  Lord, we ask for your wisdom and your guidance that we may be ever vigilant and not fall back into complacency with a presumption that such a storm can never happen again.  Lord, we ask for your spirit to fill our lives and drive us to prepare and be ready, we ask for your spirit that the power that unites us in times of tragedy can continue to unite us in times of plenty for the betterment of all humanity.

Dear Lord, bless the survivors of the storm, bless the first responders who put themselves into harm’s way to aid those survivors, bless the agents of rebuilding, who helped to rebuild our neighborhoods in the aftermath to a new normal, and bless the workers of the recovery, those women and men who are in it for the long hall, committed to work for a year or two years or as long as it takes until every person affected by Sandy can look back and say, “I remember when it happened, and I remember how we overcame what happened to us.”

Dear Lord, bless us we pray as we go away from this event, may we be filled again with the commitment to help others.

Dear Lord, bless the City of Perth Amboy, bless Middlesex County, bless the State of New Jersey, and bless the United States of America.

Amen.

 

Reflections on John 10: 1-18

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  I try humbly to stand in Jesus’ sandals as the Assistant Shepherd of this church.  I stood beside another Assistant Shepherd this morning looking at the still smoking remains of his sheep-pen. 

You may have seen on the news this morning that the Church of St. Cyril and St. Methodius burned down overnight.  I knew the previous pastor in a clergy group we had going a few years ago.  I went down, as a Chaplain with the P.D. and as a fellow clergy-person to offer what I could.

By the grace of God, no one was hurt.  But how does an Assistant Shepherd go on when the church burns down?  Of all the things that they do not teach you in Seminary, managing a disaster like this may top the list. 

Verse 14 says, “I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me.”  The church goes on without a building because the Assistant Shepherd knows the people of the flock and the people of the flock know their Assistant Shepherd.  People create the church, the building is simply a convenient place to meet.

In this passage in John, Jesus is not only the good shepherd, he is also the gate for the sheep to come into the sheep pen, all to make sure the sheep come in safely.  But it takes the hard moments, like the loss of a church, to remind me of just how much Jesus really is in charge.

Verse 16 makes things clearer.  Jesus said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.  So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  Our church will take a step forward to help those other sheep not of this flock.  If that church needs a place to worship, I believe we can stand ready.  I believe we must stand ready.

They are probably very different from us.  They may have icons and make assumptions about how some things are sacred that we do not assume.  But they are of Jesus’ flock as surely as we are.  And we can help.

If Jesus has a vision statement about his ministry, “I am the Good Shepherd” is probably as good as any.  Now connect that to our vision, to be a Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom.  God’s Kingdom is filled with the sheep for whom Jesus is the Shepherd.  Each church gathers together some of those sheep together. 

Now we define what we do as a Neighborhood by what we do on behalf of our Neighbor.  Those definitions come out of our Anchor statements.  The fourth statement is to take time TO SERVE our neighbor so we may be Jesus’ minister.

If we can do that as individuals, we can do that church to church.  If the Lord calls upon us to help out our sister church after their fire, how much more opportunity will we have to be neighbors to them in their time of need?

Amen.

 

Remembering How We Overcame the Storm

On Monday, October 28, 2013, at 6pm, there will be a Commemoration of Hurricane Sandy here in Perth Amboy.  It will take place where High Street ends at Sadowski Parkway, where the gazebo used to stand before the Storm took it.  The Service of Prayer will be concluded with a candlelight march to the Waterfront where the storm damage can be seen, even a year later.

It has been one year.  How have our lives changed?  Or is the better question to ask, how did our lives change, but now how have they changed back?  Because, let’s face it, even though Perth Amboy was one of the seven worst affected communities in Middlesex County, we were not on the front lines.

We were not on the front lines in our community.  The storm surge wiped out along the harbor.  The pictures of what was dug out from the bottom of Bayview Park still give me chills.  But up here, we had wind, lost electricity, but no water got in. 

We were not on the front lines in this community.  Sayreville and South River have neighborhoods being bought out so that the houses can be torn down in anticipation of the next one.  And the storm pounded on Monmouth and Ocean Counties in ways we were spared. 

Staten Island and Sandy Hook stood as sentinels, taking beatings to protect us inland.  But the last year has brought profound changes for me in ways I never would have imagined.

It has been a most profound education in the dynamics of recovering after something that reminds us how trivial human beings are in the grand scheme of Planet Earth.  Trivial?  I pick the word deliberately.  We can build as much as we want, expand as much as we want, pillage and destroy as much as we want, but we are still at the mercy of powers we cannot even begin to understand, much less control. 

So what do we do, one year later?  Thank the Lord there hasn’t been another confluence of events this year.  We aren’t ready. 

So what do we do, one year later?  Prepare, prepare, prepare.  When or where or how is the next one going to come?  It is the voice of one crying in the wilderness to a world that doesn’t want to listen.  We’ve slipped back into complacency.

I invite everyone to join us on Monday evening for the Commemoration of the Storm.  Because we will be celebrating the power of God.  And I am not talking about the power of the Hurricane.  Because the power of God is not expressed in the storms that strike, nor the earthquakes, nor the volcanoes, nor the disasters either natural or manmade. 

No, the power of God is what infuses God’s people to overcome the power of the Hurricane.  In the grand scheme of creation, the power of the human being is ultimately trivial against the power of the Storm.  But in the aftermath, the power of the human being slips.  The façade of strength we put up comes down when we see real power. 

And when that façade comes down, the power of God can enter in.  Then the trivial power of the human being becomes the magnified power of humanity in relationship with our Maker. 

Were it that such power could be mobilized without the intervention of a disaster. 

Preview to the Sermon, Oct. 27, 2013

Luke 22: 47-62

Hypothesis: The makeup of our congregation is very different from the makeup of our immediate neighborhood(s). We are also out of touch with the mainstream of the life of our community. There is a major disconnect here, no matter how you cut the cards. We have not looked closely at this disconnection and its implications for our future ministry and mission. This means summoning the courage to ask tough questions, probe uncomfortable ground, and be open to considering new ideas - ideas that could direct our ministry and witness to a very different place

A number of Easters ago, the story of Peter denying Jesus three times became the focal point of a very significant “aha” moment for me as a pastor.  The idea that Peter was found out by the servants of the High Priest because of his Galilean accent translated powerfully into the situation of our church, a church in a community where a very different accent is prevalent.

This hypothesis, that we are disconnected from the community around us, that we don’t look at how the neighborhood has changed, that we will go to church where we always have and be the group we’ve always been, no matter how far we have to drive, is not as central to our congregation as it might have been twelve or fifteen years ago.

Don’t get me wrong, the demographics of the church are very different from the demographics of the community, but the awareness and the opportunities to do something about it, those have been pursued.  We haven’t seen success, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot in the world of church.  Trying and failing, learning and trying again, discerning what God wants, risking failure to learn what needs to be learned, we’ve gotten pretty good with that.

And yet our vision remains.  But I am doing something I have never consciously done before, revisit a text and revisit the format of the sermon, as I remember it.  Of all the hypotheses proposed through the Jeremiah Journey to date, this is the one that has come the closest to what we have considered, tried, and continue to address.

There is an arc of development of Peter that I believe we are seeing paralleled in our church.  Peter dared to follow Jesus after his arrest.  He knew there was something he had to put at risk for his Master, for his Rabbi.  He had the guts to go when nobody else did.  He tried and he failed-this time.  But we know what he did with that experience.  We know how God equipped him to go on and be an outspoken leader of the church. 

I believe it is in that development that we will see where our church has been, where it is, and look forward, in celebration, to where it is going.

Prayer Circles

Anchor Statement #2 for our Church, “Take time to pray for your neighbor, that you may surround them in God’s love.”  Is this the most foundational element missing from our Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom?  Intentional, community prayer?  What if the first layer of ‘success’ in church is accomplishing this task?  Statement #1 is to take time for our neighbor.  But what if before we even take time with them, we need to pray with them?

So I believe the Church needs to introduce into its structure a series of Prayer Circles.  My goal is for 90% of the Church Neighborhood to be in these Circles.  Each Circle shall contain four to seven individuals (family members MAY be in different Circles).

The Circles are encouraged to meet in person, can reach out by telephone or e-communications. 

Each Prayer Circle begins with a Leader.  The Leader will take the initiative to:

1.        Receive Prayer requests from the church and pass them along to the Circle.

2.      Monthly reach out to the Prayer Circle members to seek prayer requests in return.

3.       When applicable, reach out weekly with special prayer support of the church.

4.      Back up their Messengers when the Messengers are not available.

5.      Participate actively in the Ministry of Prayer for the Church.

6.      Report back on the activity of the Prayer Circle.

Each Prayer Circle will have two Messengers.  The Messengers shall undertake the following:

1.        Assume the role of the Leader, if the Leader is unavailable at a given moment.

2.      Pass along the Prayer requests to the Leader of another Prayer Circle.

3.       Participate actively in a Ministry of Prayer for the Church.

 Service as a Prayer Leader or a Prayer Messenger will be for four months at a time.  December 1 will mark the first Season of Prayer.  In February, we will reach out to our Prayer Leaders and Prayer Messengers to ask them to continue. 

Church membership is NOT required to participate in a Prayer Circle.  We are not going to dispatch the Nominating Committee to recruit Prayer Leaders and Prayer Messengers.  We are going to display the Prayer Circles in the Hallway outside the Choir Room. 

This Outreach is going to grow organically.  I will serve as Prayer Leader for the first Circle.  When we reach ten to twelve members, we will split into two, recruiting actively for Leaders and Messengers as we go.  And this is not an “online initiative”.  There are a large number of our Church members who do not have access to the Web.  There are shut-ins within our congregation. 

We are going to press this initiative in the Herald and at the Congregational Meeting in November, spend a month setting things into motion, and launching on December 1.

How do you get into a Prayer Circle?  Let me know, by email, by FB, by phone, in person.  Give us a week to return to you.  Want to make it faster?  Gather friends into a Circle and bring it back to me.  Appoint a Leader, appoint Messengers, and it is one step closer.

Lessons in Prayer will be provided for all who ask.

The Church and People With Strange Accents

The text for Sunday is Luke 22: 47-62.  It is the story of Jesus being denied by Peter three times.  Not a typical text for the fall.  And this text comes from a sermon that I preached some years ago, but as one of the few sermons where I remember the conversations afterward.  I guess that says something about me as a preacher, that there are not enough sermons with memorable conversations afterward?

Quick background: Jesus was arrested after coming out of the Garden of Gethsemane, where he was engaged in the seditious behavior of praying to God.  It is the dead of night, away from the crowds, there is nearly a violent confrontation, and Jesus goes quietly-to his eventual death.

Peter follows, and fulfills a prophecy Jesus made about him.  He was brave enough to slip into the High Priest’s compound to witness the trial, but not brave enough to stand up for Jesus.  And his accent betrays him, “for he is a Galilean”.

I am white, an immigrant to this nation from the far shores of … Canada…so except when I’ve tinged my “o” and use “eh” the way a teen from the San Fernando Valley in LA uses “like”, you really can’t tell.   

Peter stood out because of his accent.  We should take pains to be aware of reaching out to those folks the Lord sends along to us who are also standing out in our congregations because of their accent, or because of something different.  We need to be painfully aware that our unconscious habits of long practice may exclude them when we need to be taking steps to include them.

I need to undo the habit of labeling ‘different’ people as “them” when “they” are us.

And the fact of the matter is we should stand out.  Not like Peter hiding in the crowd at the high priest’s home.  No, like Peter on the streets of Jerusalem after the coming of the Holy Spirit!  He made a spectacle of himself.  And it isn’t like things were different in the city.  The disciples were in hiding because they were afraid of their own arrests. 

What made the difference for them was the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The hymn “They shall know we are Christians by our love” jumps to mind for me.  If we are going to make it, we need to stand out.  But not because we look funny or we talk funny or we act funny because of our ethnic, cultural, or racial heritage.

No, we should look funny and talk funny and act funny because we are daring to show our love and our faith.  People should be helped and blessed and aided by who we are and what we do because that is what Jesus would have done.  If it is hard for us, buckle down and look to the Lord for strength to make a spiritual sacrifice in his name (see the sermon in the last post for more on that).

Amen.

  

October 20, 2013 Sermon: “Does Size Matter? In Church? Really?”

1 Peter 2: 1-10    


“More.”  Sum up what is defined as better in American culture in one word, and that word would be, in my humble opinion, More.

        One is good, three is great, five is better.

        More means “newer”.  Why settle for the Apple Iphone 4 when the Apple Iphone 5 is naturally superior?  Why?  Because it’s got more.  And rumor has it the map app is fixed…

        In 2001, the first version of HALO came out, and it has been consistently amongst the best first person shooter games on the market.  In 2014, HALO 5 is on its way.

        You know why?  More.  Every new version has more.  More guns, more apps, more enemies, more death and destruction, more realism, more and more and more. 

        More is built into family life.  Start off in the apartment, save up for more, the starter home, with the expectation that you will sell that house when the kids come along…why?  Because you need more!  More family, more kids, more!

        Consider the armed forces.  Built into the culture is the quest for more rank.  You rise in the ranks or you die.  Period.  If you are an amazing major, happy in the role, excellent at fulfilling the duties required, it will be a death knell to your career if you choose to stay there.  Take an amazing major, and you promote him or her.  And who knows, an adequate lieutenant colonel may then become an incompetent bird colonel.  How do you fix that?  Brigadier General!!

        There is even a phrase for this phenomenon, not just in military life but in every organization where “more” is expected.  One “rises to one’s level of incompetence.”  There is a certain humor in that statement, but there is also enough truth to make it uncomfortable.

        MORE also affects the church.  What do we want in church?  More people and more money.  That allows us to do more things, appeal to more demographics, to do more programs, to appeal to more folks, to get more people, who bring more money.  See how the spiral accelerates?

        More is better.  It’s a cultural mantra.

        Today, we define our churches today by the “more” standard: A: healthy-which by definition means more people or B. unhealthy, a shrinking population-NOT MORE people.  More is health, more is success, more is better.

        And at first glance, the Bible seems to promote the ideal that churches must have more. 

        Consider the Great Commission.  Go out and make disciples of ALL the world.  Put that together with a cultural expectation that more is better and is it any surprise that More is the “magic bullet” for the church?

        And, as if to reinforce this ideal, there are, in our country, the mega churches, where “more” is enshrined, places with thousands of members, flexing great power and influence in their communities.  They are the ones you see on TV, the ones I hear about in the seminars and courses offered to pastors for the growth and expansion of their churches. 

        Is “more” what a church has to do in order to be a success?  By the world’s measure, are we of the small churches just a collective failure?

        So now we come to Peter, chief of Jesus’ apostles.  He is writing a regional letter, to be carried to the churches across the sections of the empire where he has traveled.  Unlike his comrade Paul, who wrote so to individual churches, Peter provides us with more general information, a wider point of view of the how and the what and the why of church.

        And after his introductions, here is how he starts off his discussion about being a successful church:  Rid yourselves of malice, guile, insincerity, envy, and slander. 

Let’s discuss these terms:

Malice: the wish or intent to do harm

Guile: cunning and deceitfulness

Insincerity: not reflecting true feelings, often of resentfulness

Envy: wanting what someone else has

Slander: the act of saying something false or malicious to damage someone else.

For Peter, the first step is to clear the spiritual decks of our lives of all these things that hurt and undercut other people.  Every term he puts out describes people cutting down other people.  Once these things are gone we are like “newborn infants, longing for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it we may grow into salvation.”

        Did you know this is how we start worship each Sunday?  It is why we have a Prayer of Confession.  We lead off worship with praise to our God that we can come to Him, but then we recognize the accumulations of sinful garbage and corruption that builds up in our lives, and, by our group and individual prayers, we ask the Lord to flush it out of our lives. 

        And, as tempting as it is, I am not going to build on that flushing metaphor.

        Instead, I am going to go for the cheap laugh and tell you the metaphor in the passage is about getting stoned, Jesus-style.  To quote: “Jesus is the living stone and we are called to be living stones as well, built up by Christ.”

        With Jesus, it is not about the numbers, not about the more.

        The verses of our stone metaphor set two groups of people in contrast to one another, believers and unbelievers.  Now, in the modern church, the following interpretation seems to carry forward.  The world is divided into believers and unbelievers, the heaven-bound and the hell-bound.  Their dividing line is Believers and Everybody Else.   The race is to bring as many unbelievers into the fold as possible before the game is over and they are all condemned.

        I don’t think this is exactly what Peter is getting at. 

        For believers, the modern interpretation is spot on with Peter.  Jesus is the living stone, the cornerstone, chosen and precious in God’s sight.  We are called to surrender ourselves to Him, to allow him to build us as living stones into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.  We are believers.

        But modern interpretation diverges from Peter when it comes to defining the unbeliever.  For Peter, the unbeliever is not “everybody else” once you’ve separated out the believers.  No, the unbeliever is the one who heard the message and rejected it.   

         Good news for those who believe, bad news for those who rejected him.  Peter defines the unbeliever specifically.  They rejected the cornerstone, they disobeyed God, and now the living stone of Jesus is for them a stumbling block, something they fall over.  They have been destined for rejection by God.

        This is so critical in Peter’s thinking.  There are believers and unbelievers.  Both sets have heard the gospel message, and they made their choice.  There is a third group that Peter does not address and that modern thinking lumps with the unbelievers.  It is the great mass of those who have not made a choice, who have not truly heard the message, what we may call non-believers.

        So here is the takeaway.  If I, as a Christian, divide the world into two camps, the believers and the unbelievers.  If I brand everyone who is not a believer as unbeliever and therefore hell-bound, I have misinterpreted what the Scripture has to tell us. 

        And if my belief is that I have to get the gospel message to every person by every means necessary.  If I have gotten caught in the trap that more is better in church, because of that thinking, more in heaven is better than more in hell, I have missed the point of what Peter is trying to say to us.  If I have done all these things, what I have done is taken the control of the church out of God’s hands and decided that I know better.

        What Peter says is that the unbelievers are already condemned for the choices that they have made.  For him, unbelievers have rejected Christ completely.  Can they change their minds?  Sure, but that is God’s purview, not ours.

        What Peter does say is the following:

1.   God builds the church.  We are simply called upon to let him.

2.   God is building us into a holy priesthood, a spiritual house, not as individuals, but as a community, as a neighborhood.

3.   We are built up into this holy priesthood so that we can offer spiritual sacrifices. 

That is the endgame.  For Peter, the definition of successful church is how that church connects its people to the power of the Living God.

        It isn’t about winning souls for Christ, it isn’t about building our numbers, it isn’t about achieving status as a ‘mega-church’.  It is about offering spiritual sacrifices.

        So, “What’s a spiritual sacrifice?”  It is based on the Old Testament system of sacrifice.  Here is a quick summary of what sacrifices were offered for: During the harvest, the first fruits of the gifts God gave his people were offered back to the Lord in a sacrifice.  Sacrifices were made in dedication to the Lord, for a newborn child, for a marriage, for a time of personal retreat to come closer to the Almighty.  Perhaps best known was that atonement was made for sins committed by an animal sacrifice.  The penalty for sin was an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood.  The animal was the substitute for the person in question-blood for blood.

        The final sacrifice of blood for blood was made in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins.  His atonement was sufficient for the sins of the world and carried within it the grace that leads to our salvation.

        The blood for the sacrifice has been given once for all, but the need for the sacrifice remains.  We still need to thank the Lord for the blessings that we have been given.  That has not changed across the bible.  We still dedicate things to the Lord, like our children when we have them baptized.  We know God is the giver of all and we celebrate that.  And we continue to sin, we continue to hurt others, and ourselves.  And our spiritual sacrifices are what we do to overcome those sins with good.

        Our spiritual sacrifices are how we seek forgiveness and forgive other people.  But our spiritual sacrifices are not just reactive, but proactive.  We feed the hungry, we cloth the naked, we visit the sick.  Our faith has been at the vanguard of very socially progressive movement designed to help the basic plight of humanity.  Because of that, we  are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,^* in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light,

Proclaim them by the words we speak, and proclaim them by the spiritual sacrifices that we offer to our God in a world do very much in need.

And the bonus is that as we touch the lives of nonbelievers, as we invite them into the priesthood God has set for us, we do see people coming in, not because of the fear of hell, but we, as God’s church, are seeking to bring people closer to God, through the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

More is defined in each of us, more sharing, more spiritual sacrifices to reach out to others, more giving of the faith that Jesus builds within us, those are the things of true spiritual growth.

Amen.   ^And

 

Halloween: Pagan Infiltration of the Modern Culture or Church Sanctioned Fun?

I have only received a few pieces of negative fan mail in my time in ministry.  The first was for running a Halloween funhouse through the church I was interning at for the Junior High Youth Group.  They went nuts for it.  The church was huge and old, they set up stations for the tour, and we raised some money for the place.  It was probably the highlight event of the year I spent there.

And it was over the top.  Were it a movie, it would have received at least a PG-13.  I censored for risqué ideas and costumes, but for blood and gore, not so much.  I remember the quietest girl in our group brandishing a plastic kitchen knife as she played the psycho surgeon.

And then I got the long, reasoned letter on how I was leading the children into temptation. He cited some Scripture, and tradition, and his own presuppositions about the day, and that was that.

But since then, some Christians of good faith and conscience have asked me or questioned me about my views of Halloween.  I haven’t taken a settled position (although my attitudes are well displayed at home and at church).  Today, I am going to take a position.

I do not believe that the Bible takes a position on Halloween.  Celebrations are sanctioned, fun is okay, parties are appreciated, in general terms, so long as they don’t cross a line into something more sinful.  Dancing is not sex standing up, but it can lead to inappropriate liaisons.  Alcohol is not a bad thing, but it is easily abused.  There are reasonable limits that reasonable people can see and agree to.

I believe Halloween falls into that same category.  We dress up and have fun.  Yes, blood and gore are standard, as are demons, vampires, zombies, serial killers, and all manners of evil and nastiness.  But there are also angels and puppy dogs, superheroes and sheriffs, police officers and monster hunters.   

If I see a kid coming down the street dressed as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers wielding an actual chain saw, yah, I have a problem with that.  If the vampire cheerleader is actually attempting to chomp down on trick-or-treaters, I think an intervention is in order.  When a bunch of demon-clad youngsters are gathered in a front yard actually trying to summon Mephistopheles because the home owner went for "trick" instead of "treat", there are issues to be discussed.

But this is my opinion of Halloween.  I don’t pretend that it should be THE rule for other people.  Folks have different opinions and I believe that we need to respect those opinions.  As a pastor, I have worked with people who have real problems from past experiences around Halloween.  But those have been moments when things went too far.

The most important thing about Halloween is that our kids are safe as they have fun.  And I believe the Lord would bless us as we enjoy the day.

Preview of Sunday's Sermon

Hypothesis: Our church is a small, family-centered church.  Many believe that small churches with few resources of members, money, facilities, and leaders are not OK. The feeling that we have nothing of value to offer is deepseated, that only big churches with multiple programs can attract people.  We begin to ask, "What is wrong with us?" The more important question may be, "What is wrong with this picture?"

 

The Jeremiah Journey is challenging us on size.  In a culture that demands more as better, how does that affect the church?  Is it a valid argument?  Is bigger naturally better when it comes to church?  Is there a certain critical mass that a church has to hit in order to be effective in its ministry?  Is it a hundred people?  Two hundred?  Five hundred? 

And it is not just the numbers of people, but what comes with more people, more programs, more opportunities, more things to do.  When a church is growing and multiplying its ministry, is it that much more effective than when it’s of a stable size?  Are there measures outside butts in the pews or dollars in the collection plate that truly mark the effectiveness of a congregation?

Those are all sociological questions.  What about some theological questions?  Like, what does Scripture have to say about this?  There are certainly celebrations when people come to the sure and certain knowledge of Jesus Christ, but is there a biblical theology around the concept of “more”?  Or does the Bible have another focus?  Is the “success” measured by how many people come to church supposed to be an end in itself, or is it the byproduct of something else that a church might be doing?  Is it even reasonable to equate “growth” with “success”, assuming growth is the number of people on any given Sunday?

The passage from 1 Peter 2 does challenge the question of numbers in the pew as the grand measure of church success.  Is the expansion of the church a human endeavor at all?  Or are we simply instruments of God’s growth of the church?  And if we are God’s instruments, can we dare to know the mind of God?  Can we attempt such a task without much fear and trembling? 

One of the presuppositions of the growth movement in the church is the division of all humanity into two camps, heaven-bound believers and hell-bound unbelievers.  Is that absolute division even supported by the Scriptures?  Peter gives us one of the clearest passages that contrasts believers and unbelievers.  But do we really know what Peter is telling us?

And if we are wrong, then the church notion that runs through so many congregations expounding on the absolute necessity of winning as many souls for Christ before they die and go to hell, does that come into question?  Is there another way?  Even another, greater purpose to being the church?

See you on Sunday to hear more.