Vol 3 No 35 - Saving the World

What a joy it was to be with you all this past Sunday for Cokesbury and Covered-Dish Sunday.  The singing and worship was truly inspirational, and the time of fellowship and communion over the meal afterwards left me truly filled, both physically and spiritually.

Coming off the heels of this great Sunday is another extraordinary ministry opportunity in the life of our congregation, the festivities surrounding our Shrimp & Petroleum Festival parking lot fundraiser.  From Friday night thru Sunday, the youth and other volunteers within the congregation will be working to raise support for our youth ministries, and I cannot wait to see you out there as we help the next generation, fellowship with each other, and be a Christian witness to those partaking of the festival activities.  Don't forget that parking passes ($15 for Friday, $25 for Saturday, $25 for Sunday) are available by contacting the church office or our youth director, Angie, at champine@bellsouth.net.

It's not too often that a church will get the opportunity to live out the Christian faith among so many people gathered in one place at one time.  I want to encourage you, as you are able, to not only participate in the church's activities this weekend, but also to take time to take in the festival activities.  Just by acting in a responsible, Christian manner as you enjoy these things provides a powerful testimony to so many who need to come across more examples of Christian living.

Finally, don't forget that, due to parking and traffic logistics, our Sunday morning worship FOR THIS SUNDAY ONLY will be at 9:00AM.  Sunday school will not be meeting this week.

See You Sunday!

Lamar

Vol 3 No 34 - Community "Life"

A Sunday of by-request singing out of the old Cokesbury books, with a covered-dish luncheon to follow.  A weekend of welcoming residents and visitors alike to our town's annual festival while also interacting with and assisting our youth as they seek to do the will of God.  A mission to some of the poorest areas in our country.  Pictoral directory photos sessions.  Bi-weekly trips to UMCOR to assist those who provide hands-on disaster relief around the world.  Weekly communion services.  Sunday school for all ages.  Our music ministry gathering each week to improve themselves as they seek to lead us in worship.  A prayer gathering each Wednesday morning to lift up by name the needs of which we are aware.

I don't know about you, but to me the upcoming weeks in the life of our congregation are shaping up to be some very great opportunities to help us continue to grow as a community of faith in our quest to live out the life to which God has called us.  Each of these opportunities for fellowship, worship, and mission cut to the core of who we say we are as the body of Christ.  Futher, it is we we seize the opportunity to participate in these things that we get to see even more of God's grace and mercy.  There is nothing that the forces of evil hate more than the body of Christ strengthening itself by engaging in the life of the church.  There is nothing that the forces of evil enjoy more than the people of the body of Christ being distracted from the community of faith, for when we do not gather together, we are not reveling in and drawing strength from the Spirit that binds us to one another.

Looking over the list above, I can tell you that while it may not be possible to participate in all of them, I can tell you that if/when you can/do take part in these activities, it is a joy like none other - for there is nothing that is more joyful than being an active part of the salvific work of Christ in the world today.

See You Sunday!

Lamar

Vol 3 No 33 - Re-Discovery

How many times in life do we have that wonderful experience of rediscovering a long-lost friend or a long-lost treasured item that we had let slip from our mind?  Preparing for my Sunday School class I have experienced these emotions walking through the pages of Hebrews.  A lesser-known of the New Testament writings, Hebrews is filled with many timeless truths that, upon further consideration, have a deep impact on our walk with Christ.  Until I read and studied this material in-depth, about the only thing I could specifically recall from Hebrews was one of my favorite verses in all of scripture, "Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen." (11:1)

I wonder how often we allow our lives to be lessened by our failure to interact with more of the Scriptures on a regular basis.  I ask myself, and ask you now, how much of the Good News do we miss out upon because we either don't read scripture on a regular basis OR read only those parts that we enjoy and/or with which we are familiar?

There are so many things in life that once were so special to us and now we could barely, if at all, recall them right now - why is it that we so easily allow them to just drift away as we move through life?  Getting re-acquainted with the once-familiar is such a joyful experience; my hope and prayer for each of you this day is that you will take the initiative to become re-acquainted once again (or, in some cases, for the first time) with the joy of some of the lesser-known of the Scriptures.

See You Sunday!
Lamar

Vol 3 No 32 - Back to Basics

For a number of children in our community, tomorrow and Friday mark the first day of school, and it causes me to think back to the anticipation and terror that greeted a new academic year.  Catching up with people I hadn't seen all summer was great; meeting new people who had moved into town was ok; getting back into routine was, well, getting back into routine.

One thing that I will always keep in mind when I remember the start of a new year is the experience of walking into a new teacher's classroom.  Of course, I walked into the room with preconceived notions and prejudices about the teacher in question based on the word on the street (it wasn't until seventh grade that I realized that teachers passed word among themselves about incoming students and that our reputations preceded us as well).  Dealing with a new teacher, however, became a moot point after about a week most years because by then the familiarity of the expectations that the teacher had for us were established.

It's with this in mind that I am looking forward to our next three weeks in worship, for I will be preaching a series of sermons based off of John Wesley's expectations for those who joined the Methodist societies that he and his brother Charles were establishing within theChurch of England.  Wesley's three simple rules were:

    1) Do No Harm
    2) Do Good
    3) Tend to Your Relationship with God (paraphrase)

As our children and our society start getting back into the routine of a new academic year, I hope and pray that you will join us for this series of worship, being reminded once again of the expectations that are placed upon those of us who choose to follow Christ.

See You Sunday!
Lamar

Vol 3 No 31 - Endurance

On March 5, 1738, a young Church of England preacher by the name of John Wesley was in the throes of deep despair about his faith in Christ, to the point that he was giving serious consideration to leaving the preaching ministry.  Peter Bohler, a Moravian missionary, counseled the young Rev. Mr. Wesley to, "Preach faith till you have it, and then, because you have it, you will preach faith."

These words have been weighing on me over the past month or so as I have been in conversation with several of you, and I have come to conclude that for so many of us, one of the greatest challenges of the Christian life is when faith becomes, for a season of life, a discipline (a ritual, if you will) in which we engage with the mindset of "just getting through."  One of the greatest things that I love about the traditions and rituals of the church (in prayer, in worship, in the patterns of daily life) is that our love of Christ, and our devotion to Christ, does not rely solely upon OUR feelings, OUR emotions, OUR desires; indeed, through the church, the Holy Spirit has given to us a means of grace by which we can 'get through' the dry times of our spiritual and emotional journeys.  As we heard this past Sunday from Paul's letter to the Romans, "...[I] am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

To paraphrase the advice that the Rev. Mr. Wesley received over 270 years ago, advice that is an eternal truth, part of our task as people of the Christian faith is to live faith until we have it, and the, because we have it, we will live it.

Summer is winding down, and I know a number of us are mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally drained right now due to a number of things.  My prayer for all of us is that we will remember that we are not lone rangers - God, through the love of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, has, is, and will continue to sustain us far beyond anything we can imagine.  Praise be to God!

See You Sunday!
Lamar

Vol 3 No 30 - Connectional Serendipity

I never cease to be amazed at the truly connectional nature of our denomination.  While Erin and I were on vacation in Nassau this past week, we made arrangements with our resort to attend services at a local Methodist church on Sunday.  We were both looking forward to being in worship together and in a place where we could just "slip in" unnoticed and with no responsibility.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we arrived and the interim pastor of this congregation is a retired Louisiana colleague of ours and a former associate pastor where I worshiped as a child.  It was good to catch up with Dr. Gerald Richardson while enjoying the worship and hospitality of Ebenezer Methodist Church in Nassau.  God blessed us immensely through our time with them and by participating as members of the congregation in the sacrament of Holy Baptism of a beautiful little girl.  These truly kind souls made us feel totally at home during our time with them.

We thoroughly enjoyed enjoyed our time with our fellow members of the Methodist tradition and were reminded once again that you never know what is going to happen on any given Sunday when you choose to attend worship.  This was also a good reminder of how blessed you can be while at worship away from home (even on vacation!).

See You Sunday!
Lamar

Vol 3 No 29 - Storytelling

Over the past week or so, I've been reading a great little book titled, "Who Gets to Narrate the World?:Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals" by the late Dr. Robert Webber of Northern Seminary. His last published work (he passed last year) is the shortest book of his that I've ever read, and one of the most thought-provoking. In a brief, but comprehensive, style, Webber takes us through the history of the philosophical, religious, and moral movements that have shaped the world since the Roman world in which the earely Church was established, while also presenting the challenges facing the modern Church by those philosophies and religions that are in opposition to Christianity. All this information is nice and very informative, but there's one question that came to my mind that I belive that each and evry one of us, as individuals, and as the church, needs to honestly answer, and that is:

Who (or what) is narrating our world?

Not the world at large, but the world of our everyday lives. From the groggy, hit-the-snooze three times daze of the early morning, to the stress of preparing for the day, to the challenges of our daily work, to the family time...who is narrating your world?

See You Sunday!
Lamar