03.31.07

What is the Gospel — Really?

Posted in Blogging, Ministry, Mission at 2:19 pm by Anthony

If you’re new to the Clay Pot Journal, you may be wondering what all those links are over in the side bar.  Those are blogs of friends of mine, some of whom I’ve only met in cyberspace.  One of those that I deeply cherish is Dee Andrews.  Dee is a remarkable woman and you can read some great stories on her Finding Directions blog.  Recently she celebrated the birth of a new granddaughter, one born into a loving and secure family.  But not all children are so blessed.  Dee tells the story of one of those and challenges us to greater discipleship.  What she says about her little town in southern Mississippi could easily have been written about “the coolest little town in Texas.”

For instance - just a couple of weeks ago in our Sunday school class one of our young ladies who works for the county social services system said that she’d had a sad and needy case come in that week.  A black lady who is a grandmother had come in with her brand new infant granddaughter who had no name.  The baby was born beside the road up a ways from here to the lady’s daughter, who is a crack addict.  So is the baby.

The woman hadn’t had any contact with her daughter in some time and didn’t have any idea where she was or that she was pregnant.  The mother of the baby was hauled off to jail, the county sought out the grandmother and brought this tiny baby to her and left.

When the grandmother showed up seeking help where she could she just had the baby lying in the back floorboard of her car because she had no infant seat and no one she’d contacted as yet had been willing to help her out at all!  The young woman in our class quickly remedied that situation by making a couple of calls to fellow church members and found a used car seat in excellent condition that they brought to the grandmother.

This young woman helped the grandmother all she could with county and state and federal aid (WIC program, etc), but asked us to help out, too, as individuals in the class and as a church.  The grandmother had no clothes or diapers or anything.  I wrote out a check for a sizable amount of money and gave it to them to go shopping for the baby.  What less could I do?

That was last week.  This week she said that the grandmother now calls the baby Lily.  Baby Lily, she is.  Here’s the clincher - the state has now brought the grandmother the three other children by the daughter - all boys - ages 11, 8 and 4.  The four year old the grandmother had never seen.

She - the grandmother - is without means of support herself and how can she care for these four hungry kids, including a small infant?  She still has a 16 year old son of her own who lives with her.

These are the people the church needs to be reaching out to around here in this small Mississippi town.  This grandmother should be at the top of our list when it comes to “missional” thinking.  I mean, this is a very religious town, over all.  There are dozens and dozens and dozens of churches of all varieties and all full of good people. 

They don’t necessarily need “converting.”  What would we be converting them too?  Showing up at a different building every Sunday morning because we sing accepella and they don’t?  Are we going to proselytize from other churches who may not agree with us in 100% of our theology but who worship with great faith as well as we do?

It is the poor and hurting people of this community - the unchurched, the neediest of needy people we should reach out to in Christian love.

Let us not grow weary in well doing, nor lose sight of who it is we should be doing well for.  

I’m happy for my new granddaughter and the life she is being born into.  Exceedingly happy.  But how can I not want as much for any other baby born into either my family or a family near by?  

Permalink 2 Comments

03.26.07

Ask, Seek, Knock

Posted in Preaching, Prayer at 10:23 am by Anthony

In yesterday’s sermon we applied Matthew 7:1-12 to the idea of accountability in Christian community.  How do we hold one another accountable without being judgmental?  As we mentioned, many of the teachings in this context also have a much wider application.

 Among the more difficult, is Jesus’ teaching in verses 7-8, where he says,

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.”

If we only look at the sweeping claim of Jesus’ teaching here, we find that it often does not match up with real life experience.  Who of us has been granted everything we asked for in prayer?

In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, however, there are several assumptions made about this kind of effective prayer.  (Some of these I borrowed from Michael Green’s Matthew for Today.)

• It assumes that I am seeking the kingdom first (6:33).  What I ask for will be in alignment with God’s greater kingdom purposes to the extent that I understand them.
• It assumes that I am a disciple.
• It assumes that I pray, seriously and persistently (The present imperative of “ask, seek, knock” could well be translated “keepin on asking, keeping on seeking, keep on knocking.”)
• It is assumed that God may answer in a way I did not want or expect: He is soveriegn and he knows what is best.
• It is assumed that I ask in child-like faith and expectancy.

Green says, “There is no suggestion that if only we ask hard enough and believe passionately enough it will turn out as we ask. What we are promised is that it will turn out for our ultimate good.”

I know this probably won’t answer all of your questions about prayer. Prayer is much more about bringing our will into alignment with God’s will, than it is trying to get God to do our will.

Permalink Comments

03.24.07

Comment Confusion

Posted in Blogging at 7:25 am by Anthony

Thanks to Dee for letting me know about some problems with the comment feature–which either didn’t allow you to comment at all or gave you access to control everything on the site! I’ve now modified my settings so that you don’t have to register to comment. However, you do have to leave an email address which will not be published. The first time you comment using a particular email address, your comment won’t be published immediately. I’ll get a message asking me to approve the comment. Once you’ve been approved the first time, your comments will appear automatically. Of course, I can always delete them if I don’t feel they are edifying, but I’ve never had that kind of problem and don’t expect it here.

So, let the comments continue!

Maureen and I are looking forward to attending the Sacred Marriage seminar at the Southern Hills church in Abilene today. I’m especially excited because Southern Hills was much church home when I was in grad school and I haven’t had too many opportunities to return. Hopefully we’ll see some of you there.

Permalink Comments

03.23.07

Free Parking?

Posted in Reading, Mission at 3:09 pm by Anthony

I was looking this week for something catchy to put up on our church sign and I came across a saying that several churches have used in their parking lots — a sign that says:

Church Parking Only — Violators Will Be Baptized

I guess that would keep a lot of people away.  I was reminded of this when I read the piece below in Leadership magazine.  It’s written by Mark Buchanan from British Columbia.  He talks about how, in Mark 2, people who really needed Jesus couldn’t get to him because of the crowd who was gathered around him had shut them out.  Could that crowd be the church who, in listening to Jesus, often ignores the needs of those who need to get to him the most?

I’m new to Albany and I look forward to witnessing my first Fandangle.  This story may also help us reflect on how we can minister to our community and the many visitors who will be coming down our street.

Here’s the story — think about it.

Years ago I was invited to speak at a small church in a semi-rural lakeside community.  I arrived a half-hour before the service, and the building was still locked.  So I drove down the town’s main drag, which the church was on.  There, between the main street and the lake, were thousands of people gathered for a community-sponsored half-marathon.  A local band was already playing on a flatbed.  Coffee kiosks were doing a booming business.  Runners were stetching, limbering up.  The local radio station was giving live color commentary.

It was a festival.

I drove back to the church and found the building open.  A church deacon met me at the door, took me to a small office and, before we prayed, told me how upset he was: on Friday, the church’s parking lot had been freshly paved.  On Saturday, someone (”probably one of those people here for the marathon”) had driven an RV into the lot.  Turning it around, they’d creased the soft asphalt.

The deacons had called an emergency meeting for Sunday night, and the outcome would likely be that they’d use the church’s savings (they had over $50,000 in the bank) to hang a chain across the entrance of the church parking lot and prevent any further damage.

I decided, there and then, to preach Mark 2.  I stood up, read the text, and asked, “What roof tiles do you need to break?  What are you willing to suffer the loss of for the sake of reaching the thousands of people right outside your door?”

The parishioners sat unmoving, unmoved.

It was a dirge.

I’ve never seen a congregation clear out more quickly.  I don’t think it was to join the festival outside.

Permalink 2 Comments

03.20.07

Visitation

Posted in Ministry at 10:08 pm by Anthony

Occasionally I’ll hear of a minister who thinks that hospital, nursing home, and home visits are somehow tasks that are too mundane for their high calling of a “Ministry of the Word.” I do not want to be judgmental of these people because I am seeing how quickly schedules can fill up and hard choices have to be made. But while finding the time to visit can be difficult, I find such opportunities to be one of my favorite aspects of ministry. Because I’m “the preacher,” people can easily see my life as being different from theirs, and our paths may not cross on a day-to-day basis. When a crisis arises, however, “the preacher” often finds an open door to be involved in people’s lives in a more intimate way, and I have an opportunity to validate the words I preach through living out the ministry of Jesus, who is the Word. In that sense, putting into practice the ministry of Jesus is the only true “Ministry of the Word.”

Today I traveled to Dallas with Robert and Emma to visit Monte and Sheri. Emma had a doctor’s appointment as part of the follow-up for her surgery last December, and we all wanted to see Monte and Sheri after Monte’s quintuple (is that the right word for “5″) bypass surgery last week. He finally got out of ICU and in to a room yesterday and seems to be much better. Monte asks for our prayers for his continued recovery, and for the ability to make the lifestyle changes necessary.

Permalink Comments

The Treasures in the Heavens Are Now

Posted in Reading at 3:20 am by Anthony

This selection from Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy complements yesterday’s lesson on “Treasures.”

There is, I think, a tendency to regard this treasure in heaven as something that is only for the ‘by and by’.  It is thought to be like life insurance, so called, whose benefits only come after death.  And indeed it is crucial to understand that, because we are friends of Jesus Christ, we do have ‘an inheritance for those of us who by faith are guarded by the power of God unto a salvation set to be revealed in due time’ (1 Pet. 1:4-5).  This is important.  As the Egyptians discovered long ago, we are going to be ‘dead’ a lot longer than we are alive on this earth.

But the treasure we have in heaven is also something very much available to us now.  We can and should draw upon it as needed, for it is nothing less than God himself and the wonderful society of his kingdom even now interwoven in my life.  Even now we ‘have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless angels, and to the assembled church of those born earlier and now claimed in the heavens; and to God who discerns all, to the completed spirits of righteous people, and to Jesus the mediator of a new agreement’ (Heb. 12:22-24).  This is not by-and-by, but now.

What is most valuable for any human being, without regard to an afterlife, is to be a part of this marvelous reality, God’s kingdom now.  Eternity is now ongoing.  I am now leading a life that will last forever.  Upon my treasure in heaven I now draw for present needs. …

What my life really is even now is ‘hid with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3).  What I ‘treasure’ in heaven is not just the little that I have caused to be there.  It is what I love there and what I place my security and happiness in there.  It is God who ‘is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble’ (Ps. 46:1). And as the apostle Paul has taught us from his own experience, ‘My God shall supply every need you have in terms of his riches in glory in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 4:19).  This is the constant witness of the biblical record to The Kingdom Among Us. (pp. 230-231)

Permalink Comments

03.19.07

A New Beginning

Posted in Blogging at 9:58 am by Anthony

April 30, 2007 Update:  I’ve learned recently that 2 people had just marked this post and have not been seeing my updates.  If you are not seeing any posts other than this one, check your bookmark.  It should be set to any one of these addresses:

http://journal.albanychurch.net or
http://blog.albanychurch.net or
http://albanychurch.net/blog

Welcome to the resurrected “Clay Pot Journal.”  If you’ve visited my old Blogger site, thanks for taking the trouble to find me here.  I’ve relocated because I want to use this journal as part of my ministry at the Albany (TX) Church of Christ.  I’ll be sharing news and reflections from my personal, family, and church life, as well as some of the things that I’m reading. 

Everyone who uses this Word Press blogging software seems to love it.  I think it will take me a while to get used to its features.  I think I have this set up so that anyone can read these posts, but you have to register in order to comment.  This is just to prevent spammed comments.  I hope that it’s not too much trouble and that you will take the time to comment, but feel free just to “lurk” as well. 

Again, welcome to the Clay Pot Journal’s new home.

Permalink 4 Comments