Protected: Prayer Requests April 30, 2008

Posted on April 30, 2008 
Filed Under Prayer Requests

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


“PEACEMAKER” (Not the Colt .45) Matt. 5:9

Posted on April 24, 2008 
Filed Under Pastor's Blog, Sermons

That was for all you Pennsylvanians. I always knew there was something wrong with you. Thanks to a presidential candidate, that has been cleared up for me. Now I know that you are just clinging to your God and your guns. God save us from stereotypes. Such is the power of a media-driven world.

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God.” We need this text. By “we” I mean the Church. Too often we forget who we are and who we represent. God is calling the Church to be a champion of peace (wholeness). Unfortunately this can quickly become socio-political and lose its textual/spiritual strength. In turn we shrink at the same time from the high and holy expectations of our God (Jesus Christ). By that I mean the world often sees us as hypocritical, homo-phobic and intolerant. Needless to say we are often stereotyped and yet are we not prone to often do the same thing? For instance, not all homosexuals are of the San Francisco image we see on tv. Most of the homosexuals I have known are real people with real problems and questions about life and God. I have not found them to be in your face but rather trying to live under the radar screen of noticability. This text helps raise the question, do we love the lost? And if so at what personal cost to reach them (being we are the ones called to make peace)?

It all has a way of making us squirm. It is far easier to defend the faith than it is to be a peacemaker in holiness and blamelessness (see Hebrews 12:14). At the root of our struggle can be fear, bitterness and pride. These serve to suppress the pursuit of peace and relational well-being. It was Frederick Buechner who said, “sin is whatever you do that pushes you away from other people.”

How many souls are harbors of hate? What’s in your soul? How easily it becomes a vault that nurses old wounds and feeds bitter offenses. Last week Jimmy Carter went to the Middle East and talked peace. He has a nice idea but he lacks the means and for that matter any true source for establishing peace. He readily admitted he represented only himself and had no authority and was acting on behalf of no one (especially the United States). God the Father said of Jesus, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” In the Bible a “son” carried weight. He had emissary like status possessing authority representative of his Father. Peacemakers are called the sons of God. Our source of power is Christ and his cross and our means is our representation of him as ambassadors. As a follower of Jesus you have more authority and power than Jimmy Carter. For too long the Church has chosen not to exercise this power in the pursuit of peace that holiness in the Lord might be established. Be an ambassador of Christ in a fractured world thru the strength of Jesus. WHB

LETTERS FROM PRISON by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Posted on April 24, 2008 
Filed Under Book Review

“The man who despises another will never be able to make anything of him. Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. Why have we hitherto thought so intemperately about man and his frailty and temptability? We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others — and especially to our weaker brethren — is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men’s sake.” Bonhoeffer, “Letters From Prison”

You’d think I never read. How is it that the most good intentions fall by the way side? It had been my intention to review a book monthly when while sifting through the site I realized that I had fallen behind. The book I am reviewing is of that nature. That is when you start reading it much of life just falls behind. It somehow seems much smaller and less significant. All those worries, cares the stuff that leaves us fretting. Bonhoeffer will humble you.

“Letters From Prison” is a collection of Dietrich’s correspondence to family and friends while he was in prison/concentration camps during WWII. Without getting lost in the details and for those who know next to nothing about Bonhoeffer suffice it is to say he was a Lutheran clergyman in Germany. He objected to Nazism and spent the majority of the war in various prison camps until he was executed by hanging just days prior to the camps liberation. Like I said, Bonhoeffer makes much of the world seem small and left behind.

Keep in mind these are letters you see, with interpersonal dialogue that may become tedious but at times it reads like some great treatise. If you are not careful you will meld with the pages and become lost in Bonhoeffer’s struggles against reality and his theology. Which brings up an important point. Years earlier Bonhoeffer had written a great treatise called, “The Cost of Discipleship.” It is Dietrich’s theology of how to live life in Christ. For anyone seriously interested in the spiritual disciplines it would be a sin not to read it. And yet I would have to say, if I had to choose between the two I would take “Letters From Prison.” I suppose that’s why I offer this review. Little did Dietrich know that he would get to practice his theology in a concentration camp (or at least try). Here you get to enter the soul of Bonhoeffer. It is apparent that at times he saw himself as a failure while today the Christian world lives in awe of him. Ironically he questions what he previously wrote. At one point he notes that he was younger and might I say naive.

That being said, to read “Letters” is to take a philosophical journey. Where one has to struggle between what one wants to believe (theology) and the context (life) within which one has to practice it. This is where philosophy becomes so valuable. As one has to consider what one hopes really is in light of what currently is.

Reading Bonhoeffer you have to keep in mind that he was a Lutheran in the twilight of neo-orthoxy (the dominant theology of his day). His friend, Karl Barth would have to flee Germany and these two men who often seem scorned by Evangelicalism (I suppose because of their neo-orthodox perspective) are voices demanding to be heard in our entitlement, elitist(read left-wing psuedo-facist) country we call the U.S.A. These two men of God made Hitler tremble and we need such voices today. When I read Dietrich it is like listening to a wounded theology which bleeds out of his grief for humanity (especially Germany). Like Atlas, Bonhoeffer shrugged and shook the Third Reich and sought to express what life is and how costly it could be as a follower of Jesus.

“Letters From Prison” is often with me. My copy is tattered and weary. For I keep it in my truck. It’s the book I read when I am out and about. While at night it keeps me up with my own struggles between God and country. So if you see me in an out of the way parking space at Schneider’s Market or parked up in some field. Don’t worry, chances are I’m just praying, thinking and reading “Letters From Prison”. It’s one of those books I’ll be reading for the rest of my life. WHB

Weekly Bulletin – April 27, 2008

Posted on April 24, 2008 
Filed Under Weekly Bulletin

THE LORD’S DAY
April 27, 2008
WELCOME!

If you have come as a visitor, we hope that you’ll leave as a friend who’s been blessed by worshiping in this house of God. We encourage you to join us again.  Please fill out a visitor card before you leave today.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

PRAISING GOD WITH SONG

GIVING TO GOD  Offering  /  SPECIAL MUSIC    

Jr. Church children (ages 4 – 7) may be dismissed.

HEARING FROM GOD 

WORSHIPING GOD IN SONG

   
PLEASE JOIN US FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL, NEXT!
There are classes for every age.

TODAY: Soccer Camp Mtg. after Sunday School in the Chapel. If you want to be a part of this ministry or find out how you can help out, please join us for a few minutes in the chapel right after S. S.

TONIGHT: No Evening Service

THIS WEEK

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Protected: Prayer Sheet – April 23, 2008

Posted on April 24, 2008 
Filed Under Prayer Requests

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


FCC Fascar Event Photos 4-19-08

Posted on April 20, 2008 
Filed Under Photos & Videos, WOL Club

What a great time we had at the first Annual WOL Fascar Race day!  Congratulations to all the participants and winners!

Please copy the link into your browser to see photos from the event!

DO YOU WANT TO SEE GOD? Matthew 5:8

Posted on April 17, 2008 
Filed Under Pastor's Blog, Sermons

Now that is a scary question. At least if you know anything at all of the God of the Bible. God told Moses that no one could see his face and live. So apparently there is some risk involved in having close encounters with God. Like getting too close to the fire you might get burned. And yet it is so inviting, staring deeply into those red embers. There is a tranquility about it.

I think seeing God is like the “holy grail” of our faith. Our Lord is the prize. I mean gifts, blessings or presents are nice but wouldn’t you trade them all in for the Father who gives them. I mean let’s face it if you have no desire to see God now I would not plan on seeing him in the future. Sure there are plenty of people out there in popular Christianity who want stuff (blessings) from God. But actually seeing God is the furthest thing from their mind. They want God’s stuff but they have no interest in communing with God.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The word ‘pure’ has Old Testament cultic connotations. God required pure or clean sacrifices. In the same vein a person had to be ritually ‘clean’. To put it simply if you were unclean you couldn’t go to church. This likely had some bearing on David’s worship psalm (24:3-4). “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol.” Even David who was a man after God’s own heart found purity to be somewhat elusive. Especially in this dirty little world we find ourselves living in, not to mention our decadent hearts. There is misery in this text were it not for Christ. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one who casts our sin as far as the east is from the west and buries them in the depths of the sea. Through the shed blood of Christ we can be clean. That’s why i said, If you don’t want to see God now then don’t plan on seeing him later. Like in heaven. We need him now. And we must desire Christ and his cross in our life. Christ has to become our life.

The Bible tells us that at one point in Moses’ life he was afraid to look at God. And then he came to the point where he would go no further until he saw God. It is the pure in heart who eventually see God. Remember it is God who decides if your life is acceptable or not. Would God accept your tax return? Would God accept your thought life? Would God accept the way you treat your parents or grandparents? Would God accept the way you treat your enemies. Is your life acceptable to God? I don’t know about you but my life just never seem to add up so I go back to Jesus and his righteousness. We have to trade places (kind of sort of). “He who knew no sin became sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ becomes our life, his purity becomes our life and we are new creatures in him. All that old stuff has to pass away. Where once I was afraid, now I have those moments where I can’t go any further until he appears before me.                         WHB

Protected: Prayer Sheet – April 16, 2008

Posted on April 17, 2008 
Filed Under Prayer Requests

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


Weekly Bulletin – April 20, 2008

Posted on April 17, 2008 
Filed Under Weekly Bulletin

THE LORD’S DAY
April 20, 2008
WELCOME!

If you have come as a visitor, we hope that you’ll leave as a friend who’s been blessed by worshiping in this house of God. We encourage you to join us again.  Please fill out a visitor card before you leave today.
ANNOUNCEMENTS

PRAISING GOD WITH SONG

GIVING TO GOD  Offering  /  SPECIAL MUSIC    

Jr. Church children (ages 4 – 7) may be dismissed.

HEARING FROM GOD

WORSHIPING GOD IN SONG

   ____________________
  
PLEASE JOIN US FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL, NEXT!
There are classes for every age.

TONIGHT: Institute of Biblical Studies, 6:30 PM – Deuteronomy

THIS WEEK

UPCOMING EVENTS:

LADIES BOOK CLUB NOTE! 
 Find your book ladies!  We’d like to get together on Thursday evening, May 15 if that is acceptable for all involved.  So start reading & fill out your questionnaire.  We have lots to talk about!  Also, please let Terry know if you would like her to order your next book.

Thanks for attending First Christian, please come again!

Weekly Bulletin – April 13, 2008

Posted on April 10, 2008 
Filed Under Weekly Bulletin

THE LORD’S DAY
April 13, 2008
WELCOME!

If you have come as a visitor, we hope that you’ll leave as a friend who’s been blessed by worshiping in this house of God. We encourage you to join us again.  Please fill out a visitors card before you leave today.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

PRAISING GOD WITH SONG

GIVING TO GOD  Offering  /  SPECIAL MUSIC    

Jr. Church children (ages 4 – 7) may be dismissed.

HEARING FROM GOD

WORSHIPING GOD IN SONG

PLEASE JOIN US FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL, NEXT!
There are classes for every age.

TONIGHT: No Evening Service

THIS WEEK

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Thanks for attending First Christian, please come again! 

Next Page →