Church Blog

Being a Multi-Generational Church

November 15, 2016

Last May, before Robert went on vacation, we had a pre-sabbatical meeting and talked about some goals for the summer and the upcoming ministry year. One key focus was our historic value of being a multi-generational church. For those of you who are new to SMCC, I’m going to describe what we mean by multi-generational. I am also going to give all of you an update on the progress of several strategic objectives regarding this focus. So, what does multi-generational look like here?

What it isn’t
When we at SMCC say multi-generational we do not mean having a variety of ministries to appeal to all age groups. Rather, we mean that we value worshiping, serving and fellowshipping together. This is not to say that we don’t have children’s Sunday School, youth group activities or adult gatherings. We do. However, we value and intentionally seek opportunities for our children to interact with adults of all ages. What does that look like here?

First, it is relational.
For our family, it looked like our daughter, Ann sharing knitting projects with Catherina Bybee and calling Grace Wagner when she had to write a speech and wanted to talk it over with someone. Ann was very comfortable interacting with adults of all ages, even in Junior High because it was normal for her.

Our son, Luke, was about as “late a bloomer” as anyone can get. Soon after he got his driver’s license, he rushed in our house, locked the door and said that someone had followed him home (from Santa Margarita to rural Templeton!) Soon, a police officer appeared, said that someone had reported an under-aged driver and asked to see Luke’s driver’s license. Luke was pulled over more than once because officers suspected he was an under-aged driver. The first Easter after he got his license, we were helping with set up for the Easter Service at the Asistencia. Su handed Luke her car keys and told him to go to her barn for some bales of hay. He came up to me with his eyes as big as saucers and asked me what to do. He was used to people assuming he shouldn’t be driving, not handing him keys.
I said, “Drive carefully.” Su’s request and trust was very affirming to Luke.

Your children, too, will develop relationships with adults in our congregation. It is a great gift for parents to know that people who share a love for the Lord will speak into their children’s lives. It is a great gift for children to have adults to turn to when they have questions or need advice. It is also very affirming for our children to be recognized as old enough to take on responsibility. Helping in Sunday school, serving at the Thanksgiving dinner, working at the Santa Margarita Clean Up Day, running a booth at the Country Carnival, helping at Creation Care Camp and serving at Camp Good News are all opportunities for our children and youth to serve as they become mature enough to do so.

Second, it helps all of us mature as believers.
When our children sit with us in church, they learn the forms of worship. They learn when to stand and when to sit. They learn to hold their hands out for the benediction. They learn how we take communion.

When our children sit with us in church, they learn how to worship. It is amazing how quickly children learn hymns, praise songs, the doxology, the Lord’s Prayer and even the Scriptures we hear for communion and the benediction. They learn that worship is different than other kinds of singing. When we worship together, there is a special reverence and joy.

When our children sit with us in church, we learn to extend grace. Children are children. They will have wriggles. They will forget they are inside and make comments with outside voices. They will have days when they are out of sorts. It’s okay. We will support their parents and praise God that we are His people. Through these precious children, Santa Margarita and many other places all over the world – wherever He sends our kids – will hear the gospel preached and see the gospel lived out.

Updates on specific strategic objectives.
SABBATICAL: Robert was going to talk to other churches about how they “do” multi-generational. He has begun sharing some of what he learned with us and will continue to do so.

SUMMER: ENJOYING EVERY-ONE OF US: We did multiple activities this summer focusing on getting to know each other better and simply enjoying being together. Many of these were multi-generational.

CATECHISM: We are periodically integrating into the church service some of the catechism questions the children are learning in Sunday School. We are also including in the weekly email or bulletin the catechism question and Bible lesson the children are learning each week.

LITURGY: You may have noticed more liturgy (responsive readings) in the services. We are hoping that these kinds of additions to the service will be more engaging for children.

ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL: In September we began an 8 week adult Sunday school talking about how we can intentionally disciple our children. We’ve talked about intentional parenting, family worship at home, keeping the Sabbath, teaching catechism at home, families worshiping together in church, and the transition from living at home to going to college. I put some copies of the articles we read on the back table, if you are interested.

Nov 20th we will start a new 8 week session. It will be a book group reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart. This is an excellent book that helps parents learn how to address not just their children’s behavior, but the heart behind the behavior. You are all invited to join the book group, even if you don’t have children or no longer have children at home. If you are interested, but can’t meet Sunday morning, let me know. If there are 2 or more people, I’ll let you know and you can work out another time to meet and go through the book at the same time.

SERMON SERIES: In January, we’ll start the new sermon series, ALL GOD’S CHILDREN.

LONG TERM: Our long term goal is to go back to having children 3rd grade and up in the service. With other transitions happening and the Sunday school classes already underway for the year, we will wait to integrate the 3rd to 5th graders in the service, but you are welcome to invite your children to join you in the service periodically.

We will continue working on these strategic objectives and will keep you updated on their progress.

​​​​​​​​​​Karin Taylor

The doctrine along the road

October 17, 2016

I have this ongoing dream for the ideal Sunday night after a good morning service of worship. It looks like this: you and me, brothers and sisters, gathering in the old chapel together over something hot to drink (I want something hot to drink, even if it’s 100 degrees out). We would sing around the piano from the old church hymnals that have seen so many good years and show many signs of love and affection, not to mention signs of wear and abuse. Then we would open up the same passage from the morning one more time. Here is what I would say to you, “Can you see the good old doctrines that this passage touches? Can you see what it says about God and man, sin and salvation?* Take a look back with me.”

For Mark 10:32-42 where the blind man demonstrates faith and the Apostles, again, play the part of the foil, it would look like this.

The doctrine of God: We learn here that God is powerful, able to give sight to a blind man. This is a unique kind of miracle in the New Testament. Apostles do miraculous signs, but only Jesus give sight to the blind. God also has the power to raise the dead, as Jesus predicts that He will do. We say God is all powerful or omnipotent.
The doctrine of Christ: Jesus, the second person of the eternal Trinity, the promised Son of David from the Old Testament, who added humanity to His true deity, came with a purpose of giving His life as a ransom for many. We say only man should pay for sin and only God could pay for sin, Jesus Christ has both natures.
The doctrine of man: Mankind, as demonstrated by the Apostles, is selfishly hungry for personal power; as demonstrated by the Chief Priests is murderously evil; and, as demonstrated by the blind man, sometimes recognizes their need for the mercy the Jesus brings. All of these are valuable enough that Jesus goes after them. We say that people are both valuable and fallen, glorious and guilty.
The doctrine of sin: The image of blindness is picked up elsewhere to show the effects of sin on our ability to see the light of God without the work of God. We are blinded by sin and need God to open our eyes. We say that sin has made us utterly depraved, every part of who we are is blinded by sins’ effects.
The doctrine of salvation: Jesus has ransomed us from the hold of sin on our lives AND He continues to lead us into personal holiness. The work of salvation that began at our conversion continues to work out as Jesus addresses our sinful desire for power (or pride or permission to sin or love of possessions) and restores us to the narrow road as we follow Him. This is called our sanctification. We say that Jesus saved us by becoming a substitute for our sin.

These become a part of the total biblical picture that shapes everyday of our believing lives. These truths become an essential part of our bringing mercy to those who need it. Mercy is not just helping where there is need, but pointing to the merciful God, who became a man in Jesus Christ to save fallen mankind from sin by offering Himself as our ransom. This is why we do not lead with power or position, but we serve with mercy. Can you see?

A follow up on being servants of public justice

September 28, 2016

If I had more time on Sunday…I would have kept on going about what our actions towards public justice could look like in the place where God has sent us. That is where it matters for us and that is where God will hold us accountable. Justice for our neighbors most likely won’t take the form of a Facebook campaign, but it just might take the form of a casserole.

We have been served fully by Jesus

First, remember that we have been served by Jesus. He has fully given us salvation by taking away our sin and sorrow and he has fully given us redemption by caring away the debt of our sins on the cross. We respond to the service of Jesus in the service of worship, in service to the church and in service in all of life; that is, in our personal righteousness and our public justice. Justice is personal righteousness applied publicly. It is reestablishing the order that God would in our community have so that the people and the place would benefit from a relationship to him. Therefore, it is first evangelistic, only those who are converted and come to relationship with Christ through the justice of the cross can know true justice in themselves. We know that it will only be complete finally one day, when King Jesus Himself reigns over all, but it is true in the way we live faithfully here and now and can be more and more true as we live more and more faithfully. (All of this I said in the sermon).

So, finally, while the church as an organizational maintains the task of preaching the Word and making disciples, we all go out in volunteering and our vocations.

In our volunteering
When we volunteer, we join in the good works that are going on our community. By so doing, we encourage those things that are worth encouraging, we encourage public justice. When we lead  in our volunteer organizations, our values lead too. It is important to note that these things are not necessarily evangelistic, but are the kind of works, as Peter said, that will cause those who see to give glory to God, if not now, then none day. I personally volunteer in the community with many great organizations. I have three or four places where I could plug you in right now and get myself out of the way, so that I could dedicate more time to my vocation of Word and discipleship. I have a vision that one day, Christians will be in key roles and every volunteer organization that touches the life of our community. Right now, God has brought the possibilities of several part-time roles that could be key leadership areas for the volunteer good in our community. If you were interested, please let me know. You may the one God is raising up to be a bringing of good and public justice to your neighbors.

In our vocations
Every one of us was trained by a guild for our vocations. If you are a teacher you went through a process, if you were a doctor you went through a process, if you are engineer you with her process. Your guild had a certain set of beliefs, and they were likely not your beliefs. It is time for you to ask the question, “What would be different in my day to day work if I believed that Jesus has served me fully and wants me to serve towards the goal of him being glorified by the people I serve?”

I have a vision of christian business leaders and business owners gathering together all around our community. These men and women could share a common vision of what it looks like for our community to experience the justice of God and to give glory to God for the way their business is run. If there are enough of us, working together, on the same plan, then real, practical and particular change could take place for the good of our neighbors and the glory of God. I mean, there could be real public justice right here in our place; our widows will be better served by local business than government agencies, our orphans will be better cared for in generous and gracious church families, our poor raised up, taught and mentored by local tradesmen and women. So, gather with other people in your field, gather with other business owners or start a business of your own. Do it now and make a 20 year plan to raise up the whole village as you raise up believers in the church. God is right now, calling one of you to lead this. You will be a force of good and glory for our people and place.

Most importantly, learn to be personally righteous in the way you do your work and take very deliberate daily steps so that the people you serve walk away thinking that you are the best service that they have ever had in your field. Do this, with the God given goal that they know that God is the one who has served you with salvation and, perhaps, come to know Him too.

We become what we worship

September 22, 2016

The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.

Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man

I found myself fumbling for this quote on Sunday during the first service, never found it in the mental database and didn’t even try in the 2nd service.

But it is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books. Henry Scougal was a Scottish minister and the dean of Aberdeen University when he died at the age of 27. He became the Dean at age of 24 and he entered the same university to study at the age of 15 already fluent in Latin and Greek. It wasn’t because he was a prodigy per se, he was the product of amazing training by very dedicated parents…and he was somewhat of a prodigy.

The fruitful writings of his young life focus on the personal holiness that flows out of a life of worship. The full passage goes like this:

The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love: he who loveth mean and sorted things doth thereby become base and vile; but a noble and well-placed affection doth advanced and improve the spirit into a conformity with perfection which it loves.

He goes on:

The true way to improve and ennnoble our souls is, by fixing our love on the divine perfection is, that we may have them always before us, and derive an impression of them on ourselves, and ‘beholding with an open face, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, we may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory.’

He who, with a generous and holy ambition, hath raised his eyes towards that uncreated beauty and goodness, and fixed his affection there, is quite of another spirit, have a more excellent and her relic temper than the rest of the world.

May we be ones who become like the one we worship; the one who was rich and for our sake became poor; the one who washed his disciples feet; the one who laid down his life to ransom us from slavery to sin and death.

Very Good Friday

March 23, 2016

Every year there are 2 questions about Good Friday. I can’t remember year where there wasn’t any. Here they are:

1. Why does the church call it “Good Friday,” when what happened was so clearly bad?

The simple answer is actually simple but it till doesn’t get to the heart of the question. We call it “good,” because of what results – our salvation. We call it “good,” because God uses what is clearly bad to bring about something great – the redemption of the world.

But the actual killing of Jesus is still bad! Of course it is and we probably should find stronger words than that. It is bad, it is evil, it is Satanic.

We have a tendency to do one of two things with evil. We either need to downplay the bad of some things in the world in order to keep our simplistic idea that “people are generally pretty good,” or we exaggerate the effect that a good result has on the bad action – as if somehow crucifying an innocent man became morally acceptable because God brought good from it. No.

Friday is good because God used the greatest human evil for the greatest human good. Both are true, side by side. There is no evil act that has the last word in the face of the God who redeems.

2. Why do we somberly remember our sin when Jesus has already paid for it?

This is a good question, when asked honestly. Sometimes we take things apart that cannot be taken apart, just to be able to look at them more clearly…and then put them back together again. So, no, we do not pretend to go back to a time before our sins were forgiven and feel bad for them as if somehow our guilty feelings play a role in our penance. If Friday were about acts of penance, it would not be good at all. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone by Christ alone, even on Good Friday.

We remember our sin somberly for two reasons. First, we remember because it is no longer true, but it once was very true. That honesty aids in our present humility – that is who we were, that is what we used to do – and in our present gratitude – that is what Jesus saved us from. Thank you Jesus! Truly, that would enough of a reason to turn out the lights, light candles and wear black on Good Friday. Yet, there is a second reason we remember our sin with grief and that is so that we might come to hate our sin more severely, even now. The sinfulness of sin quickly escapes us in our day to day. Our culture tries to teach us that sin really isn’t that bad, we commit small crimes against God’s holiness on a daily basis and act as if they are no big deal. On Good Friday, we force ourselves to stop and consider the cost of our sin, at least the cost to Jesus. There is also the cost to our loves ones, our neighbors, our environment and on generations to come. There is no such thing as sin without victims.

Good Friday is when we gather to worship God who paid for our sin, who presently brings good out of bad, makes us humbly grateful and teaches us to absolutely hate our sin – and that is a good thing.

It’s Your Church

August 26, 2015

“Here are the keys, our family’s future is in your hands.”

Those were the words one of my seminary profs used, or something like them, as he handed the car keys to his oldest child for the first time. It’s true for every young driver, your choices will have an impact on your family and it is even more true for a pastor’s family.

I told you that story on Sunday and I tell you it again because Santa Margarita Community Church is your church, you have the keys.

“Here are the keys, our church’s future is in your hands, you can run with it or you can ruin it.”

A community church offers sanctuary, comfort to strengthen your broken life; it offers community, a place for you to belong as a disciple of Jesus; a place for maturity, where you and I become more like Christ tomorrow than we are today; and a place of ministry, where you can be trained to take ownership of your church in preparation for taking ownership of your world.

Many of you asked after last Sunday, “Well, Pastor, what can I own?” And I ask in response, “What do you love? Where has God gifted you?

Are you gifted to serve the Word?
Spiritual infants in the church need you to share the Christian truth with them.

1. Share your life with someone, one on one. We will talk about this more on Sunday, but ask me if you want to talk before then.
2. Share the truth with one, three or a class. This community church has always been a Bible teaching church, teaching is what we do. Are you gifted and passionate to be an teacher? There is place for you to teach our children right now. We have the material, we will equip you.
3. Share Christian habits with some. This is especially what we are teaching to our youth. Do you want to help them become Christian adults who make their community a better pace?

Are you gifted to serve the people?
Spiritual children in the church need you to help them get connected.

1. Serve to connect them with God in their personal lives. It is always true that the believers who thrive the most are those who have learned to connect with God on their own. Can we connect you with some new believers who need your help?
2. Serve to connect them with others. Are you part of a Home Fellowship Group? How about inviting someone to go with you? Each week we have visitors join us for worship in Santa Margarita. These are those people whom God has sent for us to love. Would you like to involved in our SMCC connections team and help those people feel the love and welcome that you have found in Santa Margarita?
3. Serve to connect them with the purpose of God through this community church. It is a great sign of spiritual growth when we begin to consider others more than we do ourselves. Are you called to join in with our SMCC outreach team? You know that 20% of our budget goes right outside the church for the good of our neighbors and our world. Well, the percentage of our time is even higher. We can only do as much good as we have people to lead.

Are you gifted to serve the organization of the church?
Spiritual young adults in the church need you to train them to serve along with you.

1. Train by giving others the necessary equipment to lead in the church. Are you that gifted manager who can look at a job and quickly see the resources of time, treasure and talent to see it through? Can we hand over to you either individuals who need training or groups that need formal equipping? Will you help us get training done for our gracious servants who need it?
2. Train by providing opportunity to own responsibilities under your protection. In an organization, things do not happen naturally, they happen by plan and purpose. The more we grow, the more need we have of your gifts to lead towards getting things done. Is that you? Are you called and gifted to get things done with others? Can we connect you with our office and administration ministers?
3. Train by releasing your brothers and sisters to own the church ministry for themselves. This is where we are going, the goal for everyone of us is that we own our portion of the ministry for which we are gifted and to which we are called. When we each are equipped to serve, the community church will thrive and our neighborhoods will be blessed.

Come on friends, it is your church, own it.

Your Pastor,
Robert

Seek Justice in Christ and Live Justly in Christ.

May 26, 2015

These were my words to you as an application to Revelation chapter 6 where God lets us in on the high cost of justice in a world made up of sinners. The passage shocks us and causes us to cry out to God for mercy – both for us and for the sins of the whole world. But what are we asking for when we pray for mercy to triumph over judgement?

We are praying for these two things. First, we are praying that God will accept the sacrifice of Jesus (His propitiation as in Romans 3:25) as a substitute for our own sin and guilt. That is, we are asking God to give us mercy because Jesus has justly carried aware our true moral guilt. This first prayer humbles us to pray the second prayer for the sins of the world because we understand that we are one with them, not “us versus them,”

Second, we are praying that God will bring the justice of heaven to earth even now through His church preaching the gospel and walking in justice daily.

How do we at SMCC live as a justice oriented people? Let me say three things to you pastorally.

1. We must define “justice” biblically in regards to every issue at hand. In other words, who gets to say what is just and what is not? This is always a religious question and it always starts with what it means to be human. We are taught by revelation that every human person has value because they are created in the image of God. This is true regardless of race or social or economic status. It is true regardless of age or location in relation womb. It is true regardless of chosen sin or present consequences. It is true for the president (whether or not he/she is the one you voted for) and it is true for the prisoner. Each culture develops its own idea of justice and it is for us to say, but most importantly to do, that which is revealed in Scripture, consistent with it and corresponds to reality as we find it.
2. We must act consistently with that biblical justice. We hold to the value of all people and then seek to live consistently with that, both treating and defending the treatment of all people as valuable. This will always bring about the best because it always corresponds to reality as we actually find it and the world is as God said we would find it. People are actually valuable and this is the reason why. We also act consistently the gospel of free grace in Jesus for those who repent and believe. The first justice, as we have said, is the grace that comes when the sacrifice of Jesus is applied to their true guilt. Do our justice actions require the gospel or are they just like everyone else’s? We are enculturated (to make up a word). We will begin to assume that our culture is right and judge the church or the bible by an ungodly standard. The trouble? It is not true and it will lead to destruction. People will not flourish because it is not reality.
3. We must be careful when becoming involved in justice “issues.” It is the rich have the privilege of seeing poverty as an “issue to be solved.” We are a local church filled with broken people (rich and poor), redeemed by Jesus and we live where we are in the world so that the justice of God can literally be acted out by you in your house, in your school, in your work and in your town. Start there. “Issues” are transformed when another real person is involved, not just an idea. Yes, walk to raise awareness and money. Yes, share the campaign on Facebook. But, most of all love, right now, today. Love enough to seek the justice God desires for the real people in your lives through the Gospel and through stepping in between them and injustice wherever it is found.

As a church, we will continue to preach the gospel, every Sunday and every chance we get. The good news of Jesus is the only way that real justice will happen in this world because it is the only honest grounds for forgiveness. And we will help prepare you to live in the real world.

Some of you are called by God to love individuals who are suffering, like Mother Theresa who became a poor woman in Calcutta to care for the poor men and women in Calcutta. Many of you are already doing this our neighbors who are poor, in prison or are discriminated against because they live in a womb. Go. Serve. Love. And we will support you in any way we can.

Others of you are called to address where are current systems are unjust and foster injustice. God bless you, you are joining a long line of Christians who have created systems for economic opportunity, environmental health, education for all, healthcare and the end of slavery. Many of these systems are still there under the surface, but just like Genesis 3, they will fail and cause destruction when we try to exercise our dominion as if it is outside of God’s dominion. Justice actions without justice Gospel will soon lead to another kind of tyranny. Take the time to think biblically and act consistently in the real world…and may justice roll down like waters (Amos 5:24).

Your Pastor,
Robert

What I Would Have Said If I Had More Time

May 18, 2015

Every single Sunday, I leave more unsaid that I could ever possibly say about the passage in front of us. My hope, at the end of the day, is that the single aim of the Spirit of God when He authored that passage would be true in us. From Revelation 4 and 5 that aim is that we would sing the songs of heaven into each other’s hearts, because worship changes everything.

And yet, there were several topics touched on in the passage that I would have loved to speak to if I had more time.

I would have said more about the sabbath, Lord’s day, worship.
The call to join the heavenly song is the first vision God gives to the suffering churches of Asia Minor. That is, before He gives them practical advise on how to stay strong in the midst of worldly opposition, He calls them to stop and worship. This sounds just like the original Sabbath day of Genesis 2, doesn’t it? Do you remember what we said about that day?

We said that the goal of creation is the rest of the sabbath day. God created at the universe as the majestic theater for meeting with His people. We said that the rest has become our basic rhythm because God has already finished His work of both creation and redemption, you are His people in this place. That second part – redemption – is where the last day of the week turns to the first day of the week. What began in creation has been renewed in redemption. We now gather as God’s people on the day that celebrates resurrection and leads us to the last thing w said about sabbath rest and worship. We said, regarding Genesis 2:1-3, that we continue in patterns of worship because there remains a future rest for the people of God on that day when all things will be made right. Between now and then, we gather as God’s people, on the Lord’s day, so that the good news of what Jesus has done and the certainty of what He will do can launch us out into the world for good.

Very specifically, if I had more time, I would have said that God’s pattern has always been to prioritize the day of worship as a means for shaping the hearts of His people.

I would have said more about pragmatism.
Now, what about that practical advise? Are we against being practical? No, but we are against pragmatism. Pragmatism is that belief that the truth of an idea can be measured by its success or its practical application.

It is better for us to understand truth as starting with God. God has spoken truth to us in the Bible, so truth is revelation before it is practical. For this reason, we gather every Sunday, open the Bible to the place we left off the previous week in order to hear what God has to say and then ask how we might apply it to our lives.

With that said, believing and living into God’s true revelation will always be the way that brings about the best in our lives and in the lives of the people we touch. God’s way will always be best, the most pragmatic – it will lead people to flourish.

And it will often confront our cultural understanding of success. In that sense, it is impractical. In Sunday’s passage, the call to worship together even before I try to fix the problem is presently impractical, but in the long run it will transform both us and the world. It will transform us by transforming our imaginations.

So, I would have said that Sunday worship is divinely pragmatic, but not in the way that the world counts as successful.

I would have said more about singing and imagination.
When we sing truth, we join in with reality. I mean both in the lyrics and in the musical forms itself. It use to be said that music was good, beautiful and true when it resonated with reality, with the universe as God created it. Now we say that music is good if it resonates with my personal experience or emotions at the time. That is quite a dramatical shriveling of views. Actually, that is pragmatic and probably accounts for much of the loss of the rich experience of sabbath worship.

We are learning to sing the songs of heaven. We have the words from the scriptures and have asked our musicians to think, pray and lead us in the tunes that best harmonize our hearts with those lyrics. The music of heaven transforms our imagination. The old poet John Milton once said,

For if such a holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back and fetch the age of gold,
And speckled Vanity
Will stricken soon and die,
And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;
And hell itself with pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering Day.

He goes on in the poem to tie the songs of the “one day” to the songs of creation and to the songs that accompanied the baby born in a manger.

What I am trying to say is that the songs we sing in sabbath worship are transforming our imaginations and transformed imaginations will transform our lives and our world. Why? Because if the best world that I can imagine is one in which a rising economic tide raising all boats, then I will live into that economic vision. However, if the songs of heaven have trained our hearts (imaginations) to sing “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,” and “Worthy are you because you were slain and purchased for God men from every tribe, tongue, and nation,” if this is our vision of the good life, then we will be a community of people living towards a world wide healing of nations and we will seek to bring it about by the good news that the Lamb was slain and by our laying down our lives in kind.

That is what I would have said if I had more time: our Sunday, sabbath, rituals of singing together impractically heals the world. See you next Sunday.

Your Pastor,
Robert

We are Hard Working Worshipers

March 19, 2015

Easter Sunday, the one day of the year we dedicate our worship to a feast in honor the resurrection of Jesus, will be here before we know it. We are approaching the 5thSunday of Lent, saying no to sin and self-righteousness so that our hearts are prepared to say, “Amen! Yes!” to resurrection life.

Are you ready church? Are you ready to both worship the risen Jesus who has given you new life and to serve your neighbors with every breath of that life until you fall down exhausted on the couch after a feast worthy of a resurrected King?

That is the task of Easter Sunday for us: to be both worshipfully present for ourselves and to be dedicated servants of others. How do we do both? Is it possible to do both? Of course it is, every adult knows that is possible to work hard in preparation, to host like God Himself is our guest and to soak up every minute of pleasure as long as the party lasts. On Easter Sunday, you are the hosts, setting a feast of worship for over 500 guests. They will gorge themselves on food, on fellowship and be filled to the gills with the hope of Jesus’ resurrection. And, maybe, some of them will have their lives turned around that day. Take pleasure church, in the pleasure of your guests…and do everything you can to direct their pleasure to the resurrected Savior. This is is what it means to be a growing church. This is our first love.

Our first love is to testify about the Savior we love to the people that we love.

That is Easter for us. It is holy and it is pure joy.

Growing Pains are a Good Sign

March 6, 2015

Dear church family,

It is good to be us right at this time in this place. God has done more for us than we could ever ask and more through us than we could ever take credit for. Just this week we have celebrated the life of Hazel Hunter our matriarch who co-founded this church in 1949. Hazel lived a good life and she died a good death – that is, she died in full faith in Jesus and she died having left us better than when she found us. This week, we have had many personal ups and downs in which some of us have held onto our faith successfully and others haven’t been quite so strong. And yet the simple fact that we are concerned enough to seek real change so that one reaction we always have becomes something else – something good and holy and edifying – is a sign that God is working in our hearts.

God continues to grow our church, not because we have growth as a goal, simply because we want to be whole life disciples and others want that too.

We are regularly going through growing pains in the life of our congregation. Remember with me what those are so that we can be aware and then do something about them

1. Communication: it is easier to be left out of the loop as the church grows. Please pay attention to the bulletin and to the all church emails (if you are not on the email list, contact Lauren in the church office).
2. Comfort: Everyone has a prefered size culture and we easily give our comfort zone a moral status. Pay attention to how you are feeling and go out of your way to make guests and new members feel as welcome as you have in this church family for 10, 20 or 30 years.
3. Control: Church change and growth results in less control over everything, for everyone. Let’s get used to it. Church is messy. People are messy. YOU are messy.

Let us want the change that Jesus brings in the lives of our friends, family and neighbors mores to keep tight reigns on these 3 C’s.

For the last few Sundays, there has been a very full room in the second service (which can make us introverts feel quite uncomfortable). When you arrive, find someone to talk to, introduce yourself to someone you don’t yet know and grab a seat towards the front of the room to leave space in the back.

God is putting heaven and earth back together and He is starting with us. Amen? Yes! I want that.

Your Pastor,
Robert