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Sunday, February 28, 2016
English Ministry News and Notes 2016-2-28
- Last weekend, Cyclone Winston, the largest storm to hit the South Pacific impacted both Tonga and Fiji bringing much destruction and death. Bishop Warner Brown invites us to be in prayer for healing and recovery, but also to take up a special offering for our mission partners there. We will do so next Sunday, Mar. 6th. Great thanks in advance for your generosity.
- Let's Slurp SOUP - You are each invited and encouraged to "complete" worship by participating in SOUP following worship. We will gather in the Annex. Great thanks to soup-makers this week: Donna & Adrienne, and always to our bread queen: Peggy!
- Project Welcome Update - Great huge thanks to all who have signed up to share welcome to our newest neighbors. Today is our 1/2 way point in inviting participation and it looks like we're about half way to filling 4 kits. If you haven't yet signed up to pitch in, please do so today!
- Great thanks to Ben and Al - If you appreciate the brightness of the sanctuary projector today, please be sure to share a word of gratitude with Ben and Al.
- Easter Lilies - You are invited to purchase Easter lilies to fill the sanctuary on Easter. Each plant is $10. Please sign up with Peggy no later than next Sunday, Mar. 6th.
- An Invitation to Prayer: The Ugandan elections were held last Thursday, Feb. 18th. Rev. Martin Odi, former Board Chair of YCVM, wrote: "This elections were marred by the dirtiest corruption I have ever witnessed in my life, intimidation, brutal abuse of people, especially opposition, such that in one week of election the key leader of opposition was jailed 5 times and continues to be under house arrest. Vote rigging and vote stealing; and suppression of human rights. It is the worst in the history of Uganda, even worse than the days of Idi Amin! Internet and social media, including Mobile money were not allowed to operate. Police were mechanized and acted in favor of the incumbent; beating people and blowing tear gas often, also shooting live bullet which saw about 5 people dead in separate incidences. We are back beyond days of the worst regimes in our country and now being ruled by Totalitarian African colonialists wielding not just power alone but all authority against the freedom of people. Our next parliament is a cemetery with very weak people who will be used as rubber stamps for some strong man. We need God to save us from this. The intelligent people and wise Ugandans have folded their hands and closed their mouths to watch because you can be killed if you do so. Please pray for us more. I fear for our children and grandchildren. May God help us!" Let us indeed join our brothers and sisters in prayer.
Community: God's Design For Growth (III)
God never
intended for any of us to live the Christian life alone.
A PLACE TO PRAY
AND WORSHIP - The community helps us grow, too, as it becomes a workshop for
prayer and worship. Both by instruction and by example, the New Testament
teaches us to pray and to pray for one another (Eph. 6:18, Jas. 5:16). We are
called as well to a life of worship and praise. Yet, frankly, our experiences
of prayer and worship in the church often shunt us toward merely watching
others pray and take active roles in worship. As helpful as those experiences
may be, being spectators simply isn't enough. We need a lab. We ourselves need
to pray for each other. Each of us needs to be prayed for personally. And the
small community is precisely the place where we can experiment and learn the
life of prayer.
When I am not
involved in a Christian community, it is the times of prayer and worship that I
miss the most. Many of us are never really prayed for beyond a brief mention in
one of those quick-and-dirty list prayers. I once privately offered a simple
prayer of blessing for a friend who had been in public ministry for many years.
I was overwhelmed when he said to me afterward, "No one has ever prayed
for me like that before."
We dare not
neglect each other like that! Similarly, as we learn the ways of worship in the
small community, we not only deepen our own lives but also enrich the life of
public worship. In my experience, community is at its best when it becomes a workshop
for prayer and worship.
A PLACE TO
SERVE - The community is also where we learn to strip away our self-interest in
order to serve others. It is here that we learn to share what God has given us,
whether it be goods or spiritual gifts. It is also here that we learn to be
served, though we are sometimes prideful and reluctant like Peter, who balked
at Jesus washing his feet (Jn. 13:2-10). Sometimes we are the washers and
sometimes the washees, but in many ordinary ways we can learn what submission
and service mean.
One community I
know gave time and money so a mother worn down by the demands of young children
could take a spiritual retreat. Others have found practical ways to swap mowers
and ladders and child care; some have explored group buying to help each other
grow in stewardship. I have seen people abandon a special outing to bail out a
friend’s leaky basement and give time freely to help remodel a bathroom or
repair a car. In whatever ways, community means watching over one another for
good, knowing that as we serve, all of us are growing stronger in Christ.
Howard
Macy is a Professor Emeritus at George Fox University. He is the author of
Rhythms of the Inner Life.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Community: God's Design For Growth (II)
God never intended for
any of us to live the Christian life alone.
A WAY TO SEE CHRIST IN OTHERS - One of the most important ways the community helps us is by embodying Christ’s continuing presence on earth. When my brothers and sisters love and accept me, I feel Christ’s love, too. When I confess my sin and they forgive me, I know that God forgives me, too. When they pray for my brokenness, I know that they are sharing in the healing work of Jesus. In our dog-eat-dog, enemies-with their teeth-bared world, when we feel the crush of hostility and of our own failures, to have our Christian community surround us with compassion and encouragement lightens our loads, strengthens us, and gives us the courage to keep on trying.
A SOURCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND GUIDANCE - The community also furthers our continuing conversion by being a place where we teach each other and hold ourselves accountable to each other. When I hear what God is teaching others, it teaches me, too. When I submit to the guidance and scrutiny of my brothers and sisters, it forces me to grow and to be accountable to the commitments I make.
Ignoring this powerful element is one of the main reasons many small groups never really experience Christian community. They prefer to remain superficial. Inadvertently, perhaps, they enter into a pact of mediocrity in which they tacitly agree to let all the members "mind their own business" and not to hold people accountable either to each other or to the teachings of Christ. It’s a great loss, for when we refuse accountability to the community, we not only fail to grow, but we put ourselves in grave danger.
I tend to overfill my calendar with activities, projects, and meetings, a flaw that, for me, has spiritual roots. When I began work on my first book, I took the idea to a group of trusted Christian friends who knew about my weakness.
We had a wonderful and terrible meeting. After listening to me for a while, they said they thought God wanted me to write the book. They also asked to see my appointment calendar. It took only moments for them to see that I couldn't write the book and do everything I had already scheduled, so they insisted that I should cancel several speaking engagements and resign from some committees. I took their counsel, although giving up some of those plans made me heartsick. I also sent each of them a schedule of my "writing days" as a further step toward accountability. It is clear now (though I knew it then) that they were right. If I had failed to submit to their wisdom under God, that book would still be merely a few notes in a manila folder.
Such accountability doesn't need to have overtones of checking up and scolding. It works, instead, to encourage us and help us in our growth and commitments. We may ask for guidance about how to handle a difficult relationship on the job or about how to put together a family budget that reflects our commitments about lifestyle and giving. And we'll be glad, usually, to have people ask how it’s going. The community gives us a place to air our growth and our struggles, our successes and failures. It simply gives us a way of guiding each other ever more fully in the ways of Christ.
Howard Macy is a Professor Emeritus at George Fox University. He is the author of Rhythms of the Inner Life.
A WAY TO SEE CHRIST IN OTHERS - One of the most important ways the community helps us is by embodying Christ’s continuing presence on earth. When my brothers and sisters love and accept me, I feel Christ’s love, too. When I confess my sin and they forgive me, I know that God forgives me, too. When they pray for my brokenness, I know that they are sharing in the healing work of Jesus. In our dog-eat-dog, enemies-with their teeth-bared world, when we feel the crush of hostility and of our own failures, to have our Christian community surround us with compassion and encouragement lightens our loads, strengthens us, and gives us the courage to keep on trying.
A SOURCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND GUIDANCE - The community also furthers our continuing conversion by being a place where we teach each other and hold ourselves accountable to each other. When I hear what God is teaching others, it teaches me, too. When I submit to the guidance and scrutiny of my brothers and sisters, it forces me to grow and to be accountable to the commitments I make.
Ignoring this powerful element is one of the main reasons many small groups never really experience Christian community. They prefer to remain superficial. Inadvertently, perhaps, they enter into a pact of mediocrity in which they tacitly agree to let all the members "mind their own business" and not to hold people accountable either to each other or to the teachings of Christ. It’s a great loss, for when we refuse accountability to the community, we not only fail to grow, but we put ourselves in grave danger.
I tend to overfill my calendar with activities, projects, and meetings, a flaw that, for me, has spiritual roots. When I began work on my first book, I took the idea to a group of trusted Christian friends who knew about my weakness.
We had a wonderful and terrible meeting. After listening to me for a while, they said they thought God wanted me to write the book. They also asked to see my appointment calendar. It took only moments for them to see that I couldn't write the book and do everything I had already scheduled, so they insisted that I should cancel several speaking engagements and resign from some committees. I took their counsel, although giving up some of those plans made me heartsick. I also sent each of them a schedule of my "writing days" as a further step toward accountability. It is clear now (though I knew it then) that they were right. If I had failed to submit to their wisdom under God, that book would still be merely a few notes in a manila folder.
Such accountability doesn't need to have overtones of checking up and scolding. It works, instead, to encourage us and help us in our growth and commitments. We may ask for guidance about how to handle a difficult relationship on the job or about how to put together a family budget that reflects our commitments about lifestyle and giving. And we'll be glad, usually, to have people ask how it’s going. The community gives us a place to air our growth and our struggles, our successes and failures. It simply gives us a way of guiding each other ever more fully in the ways of Christ.
Howard Macy is a Professor Emeritus at George Fox University. He is the author of Rhythms of the Inner Life.
Friday, February 19, 2016
English Ministry News and Notes 2016-2-21
*Ongoing Lenten
Invites:
- Come to SOUP - complete the time of worship by grabbing a bowl of hearty soup, sharing from your heart, and praying in unity. SOUP takes place after worship in the Annex. Great thanks to this week's soup makers: Jonathan and Becky, and the queen of bread: Peggy.
- A World Worth Saving - explore spiritual disciplines that engage you in the world that God loves. Sunday School meets weekly at 9:30 a.m. sharp in the Annex.
- Project Welcome - pitch in to generously welcome our newest neighbors in the East Bay. Together with our Presbyterian and Episcopal brothers and sisters, we are putting together welcome kits for refugee families. Sign up sheet is available in the social hall. The drive ends on Good Friday, Mar. 25th.
- YOUth Sunday Dinners, tonight! @ 4:30 p.m.!
- Did you know, a new term is beginning at KCVS tomorrow? Please hold our beloved school, KCVS, all the teachers, the students, and the supporting personnel in God's gracious care.
Monday, February 15, 2016
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