Last Week's Morning Minutes

Monday, November 10, 2008

I’m reading The Shack by William Young. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it. The story follows a man who has experienced great tragedy as God encounters him at the place of his greatest pain. Through this divine encounter, the main character learns who God is in a very different way than he ever imagined possible.

We humans like to “put God in a box”. We tend to stick to images and ideas of God that we’ve been taught by other flawed human beings without delving too deeply into the self-revelation of the Lord in Jesus Christ. But we as Christians believe that when we look at Jesus, when we encounter Jesus—in worship, in the face of another, through humble service, or in the pages of the Bible—then right there we also encounter the Creator: the Holy God.

Today, Jesus wants us to see him, know him, experience him. How can we open ourselves up to meeting him? Can we speak to a stranger in whose eyes we see light? Can we read a page of the Holy Scriptures? Can we offer a hand to someone in need? Can we pray? These are ways we can open ourselves to Jesus, ways he just might meet you and me today.

Tuesday, November 11

Today is Veterans’ Day. We give thanks for the service of men and women in uniform, of all generations, who have willingly given themselves to pursue justice and freedom for people around the world and to provide protection for all of us here.

Today let us pray for our veterans. I borrow from a group of Franciscans these words:
O God, We ask for blessings on all those who have served their country in the armed forces. We ask for healing for the veterans who have been wounded, in body and soul, in conflicts around the globe. Bring solace to them, O Lord; may we pray for them when they cannot pray. We ask for an end to wars and the dawning of a new era of peace, as a way to honor all the veterans of past wars.

Have mercy on all our veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. Bring peace to their hearts and peace to the regions they fought in. Bless all the soldiers who served in non-combative posts; May their calling to service continue in their lives in many positive ways. Give us all the creative vision to see a world which, grown weary with fighting, moves to affirming the life of every human being and so moves beyond war. Hear our prayer, O Prince of Peace, hear our prayer

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Our church and others are busy right now collecting and filling shoeboxes. Many of you have heard of this ministry of the Franklin Graham Evangelistic Association, called Operation Christmas Child. Come Christmas Day, thousands upon thousands of children all over the world, who would not otherwise have received a single gift for Christmas, will get a shoebox filled up with love with goodies and with signs of Jesus’ love. Through the boxes, these children will encounter the truth of God’s gift to our world, the gift of salvation.

It is easy to forget that our role every day is to spread the good news and the love of Christ. As we go about filling shoeboxes and thinking of the children who will receive them, let us also seek other ways each day to bring a good tiding to someone around us who may desperately need to hear one.

Write a note of care, offer a listening ear, commit yourself to do the thing that you know God has asked you to do for another. Tell someone Jesus loves them. Don’t be afraid or ashamed to mention it, to offer it. Just consider it a shoebox full of love, full of goodness, offered to a child of God.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Our church, like many congregations, has committed itself to a program, an ongoing intentional process, called Natural Church Development, or NCD. NCD originally came out of a research project conducted by a German man named Christian Schwartz. Christian Schwartz wanted to know what made a congregation, any congregation any place of any denomination, healthy and vibrant. So he studied 1,000 of them.

By now, tens of thousands of churches have been studied, and the NCD process of improving church health has been birthed, developed, and fine-tuned. It has become a way for all kinds of churches to be intentional about becoming, and growing ever more healthy.

The theory is: no human, no organism, and no organization is perfectly healthy. And just as humans need to have regular doctor’s check-up’s to find the unhealthy places and improve ourselves, so the church needs the same kind of thing. Just as God wants people to be healthy and at their best, God wants the same for the church.

The church, a family, any group of people: we’re all like a person who can be healthier if we’ll just commit ourselves to the processes: a person may need to quit smoking, a family may need to develop better communication, a church may need to learn how to better structure its church life. We can all get healthier, as individuals and groups. What will make you and those around you healthier today in Christ?