Doing the Impossible

What’s the craziest impossible thing you can imagine?  James Bond skydiving into a falling airplane?  The Cleveland Indians winning the World Series?  Jesus used the illustration of a camel going through the eye of a needle in Mark 10:17-31 – and he used that to describe a specific truth about the kingdom of God.  What does his teaching say to us in our current situation?  Click below to hear Pastor David’s sermon on this passage.

Listen now!

On Being Ordained

Yesterday, I met with the credentials committee of the Church of God in Michigan.  This second interview was intended to determine whether or not the committee will recommend me for ordination at this November’s state General Assembly meeting in Lansing.  I received word last night that they, in fact, are recommending me for ordination, so this will indeed take place on Saturday morning, November 10.

This is a great honor for me, to be brought into the larger fold of pastors and ministers in the Church of God and in the Christian movement in general.  This comes as the culmination of a long process that began, for me, while I was in seminary in Indiana.  The process involved reading several books, taking a Bible content exam, writing theological statements on fourteen different topics, defending those statements in front of the credentials committee, and meeting with a mentoring pastor.  Also, in the next several months I will complete a LAMP (“Life and Ministry Plan”) with the help of my SHAPE (“Sustaining Health and Pastoral Excellence”) group – a group of five local Church of God pastors that meets monthly for support, encouragement, and growth.

These tasks only have meaning, however, because of the ministry that I am privileged to do with you at Mt. Haley Church of God.  It is because of this relationship between pastor and church that I do all these things – that I even pursue ordination.  The ordination of a pastor is not a rite of passage that simply makes the pastor look or feel good; it is a process that strengthens the pastor’s call, encourages him or her in the work of ministry, and validates the ministry of the local church in which he or she serves.  I will be honored to serve Mt. Haley Church of God as an ordained minister starting on Sunday, November 11.

We will host a special ordination service at Mt. Haley sometime after this November’s General Assembly meeting.  There is no rush for this; we may wait until our snowbirds return in the spring.  Just as we celebrated my installation as pastor at Mt. Haley two years ago, I will be grateful to celebrate with you my ordination as a minister in the Church of God sometime in the near future.

in Christ’s service,

–Pastor David

All in the Family

Jesus gives a strong and challenging teaching on divorce – and then welcomes children into his arms – in Mark 10:1-16.  How does this passage (in its historical context) address the question of who gets to be in God’s kingdom?  How does it connect to our desire to live lives of thankfulness in response to God?  Click below to hear Pastor David’s message on this passage.

Listen now!

October Youth Update

We are off to a GREAT start for the new school year! We have added 5 new Sixth Graders plus a couple of others in higher grades. Our newly remodeled youth room looks FANTASTIC! We need to run a few weeks so that it feels ‘lived in,’ however that will come soon enough. We can’t express enough how much we appreciate what the church has done. Special thanks go to Kevin Mudd and Ron Hyde, as we know that they directed and completed most of the remodeling. We hope to give a special ‘Thank You’ to the church in the near future.

Youth still takes place every Sunday @ 6:00 PM. Van-Pick-Up usually begins around 5:00 PM. This month we will also begin holding an after school youth meeting for 6th Graders every week with Pastor Jerry & Pastor David facilitating the class. As our group as grown, we have discovered that with the group consisting of 6th graders through seniors in high school, there is a wide discrepancy for instruction and discussion. 6th graders will be involved in all youth ministry activities, but will be separated for instruction & discussion. We believe this will help in our spiritual growth and maturation for all the students. After we finish the series, ”Spread the Word,” our youth meeting topic will be “The Ten Commandments.”

We are working through Romans in our High School Bible Study on Sunday mornings @ 10:00 AM. Ron Hyde is working with the Middle School boys and Maggie Hyde is working with the Middle School girls. We hope to have Van-Pick Up on Sunday mornings so more can attend and the van would run between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM. If anyone would be interested in riding with Pastor Jerry, please contact him.

Our 2012-2013 Medical Release and Permission Forms have been mailed this month. Students should have these forms completed to ride in the van plus attend all youth ministry activities. The forms run from September 1, 2012 to August 31, 2013. Once they are completed they are good for the year. PLEASE help us by completing these forms ASAP.

This month we plan on participating in the October 20 Potluck and Hay Ride @ Peg & Chuck Hyatt’s home. On October 28, @ 2:30 PM we will go to Grandma’s Pumpkin Patch then return to church for supper & our youth meeting. We will be having a Bake Potato Bar on Sunday, November 11th to help raise funds for the Michigan CHOG Winter Retreat in December. On November 18, our youth meeting that day will be a service project, packing Thanksgiving Baskets for families at the Aldersgate Methodist Church in town. Our next BIG event will be Winter Retreat on December 28-30, 2012. This event is for all students’ grades 6-12 and costs $105. Registration is in early December. We will be doing fundraisers in preparation.

photo by Timothy K. Hamilton

The MUM sale was very successful. We will be working at Olive’s this month to help our accounts. We are also having a ‘Mt. Haley’ apparel sale (hats, T’s, sweatshirts, windbreakers) this month and will be having a Scripts Sale (gift cards) also. We hope to do well with our Potato Bar and we will need students to work that to help their youth accounts. Every student has a “Youth Account” where we do fundraising to help them pay their way to events. Our two main events of the year are Winter Retreat @ Spring Hill in December and State Youth Convention in May. We will also working with high school students to earn funds to go to the International Youth Convention in Nashville, TN in the summer of 2014.

We THANK everyone who has participated in our Youth Prayer Partner ministry. The good news is that we need to recruit more prayer partners because we have more kids to pray for. If you are interested in praying for our youth and would like to become a ‘Prayer Partner,’ please contact Pastor Jerry.

Your prayers, support and encouragement are greatly appreciated and we look forward to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with your student this year through study, fellowship and relationship. Thank you for sharing your son or daughter.

Love God, Love People!

Pastor Jerry

Revelation: Why It’s Important

This fall, our Sunday evening adult Bible study is focusing on the book of Revelation.  We are three weeks into the study, and let me tell you this:  I am really excited about this book and about your interest in it!  We have had strong attendance and good conversations in these first few sessions.  Just a reminder – it’s not too late to jump into this study!  We will gather in the Fellowship Hall every Sunday evening at 6pm, usually for 90 minutes or two hours, to study this complicated book together.

image © Kristina Gehrmann, www.mondhase.de

So why am I so excited about this?  Why is this book so important?  As someone said to me recently, “We have enough trouble understanding and following the other 65 books of the Bible… why all the interest in the last book?”  I see at least three reasons for us to invest in a study of this book during this season.

  1. Revelation is part of Scripture.  It forms part of the Christian canon, those books that we understand to be inspired by God and useful for instruction, training, discipline, and guidance.  This book tells us something particular about the salvation work of Jesus Christ, and as a result we should learn from our Lord through it.  This book was important to the first few generations of Christians, so by studying it (and them) we increase our connection with the work of God throughout the centuries.
  2. Revelation informed our movement’s history.  The Church of God reformation movement, of which we are a part, developed a unique self-understanding early in its existence (in the early 20th century).  This self-understanding was very closely tied to a particular interpretation of the book of Revelation.  We don’t hold to that understanding any more, but by studying Revelation we can learn more about who we were – and we can ask who we should be instead.
  3. Revelation gets us talking about the future.  Many believers today, including some of us, have deep-seated fears and questions about what lies ahead in the future.  Are we in the “end times”?  Is the return of Christ near?  What about the “signs and wonders” that we see?  By studying Revelation – and what it meant to its original audience, who asked similar questions – we will discover the word of hope that God has for his people in this book.  This will directly impact how we approach our own situation in the world.

The book of Revelation is a confusing, controversial, divisive book of scripture.  But we should not be afraid of it; instead, with a mixture of boldness and humility, we will learn from it together in the weeks that lie ahead.  I hope you are as excited about this as I am!  And if you have not yet come on a Sunday evening, I hope you feel welcome to try it out!

–Pastor David

The Responsibility of Prayer

Christians often pray about various needs, and sometimes we even anoint the sick as James recommends in James 5:13-20.  As we study the conclusion of this brief letter together, Pastor David helps us see a truth of our faith that undergirds how we pray, how we worship, and how we seek after people who wander from the faith.  Click below to hear his sermon on the final passage from James.

Listen now!

Filling Midland’s Cup

On Saturday, September 22, five of us from Mt. Haley – four adults and one child – helped distribute food to people in the tri-county region at Dow Diamond.  In the span of six hours, we filled the trunks and backseats of cars representing about 950 families!  This massive food giveaway was organized by a group called Filling Midland’s Cup, which has grown out of the ministries of Messiah Lutheran Church.  I was impressed by the quality of the food donations that came in from individuals and groups from around the area.  People received a wide variety of healthy foods, including a good bit of fresh produce.  (I’ve never seen so many onions in my life!)

The five of us from Mt. Haley served in a variety of capacities.  Some of us were in the ballpark where people gathered to wait for their numbers to be called.  We greeted, talked with, and encouraged those who came.  We heard their stories and gave them the gift of our time and friendship.  Others of us worked in the food distribution system, filling carts with groceries, taking the carts outside to the waiting cars, and filling the cars with the greatly-desired and greatly-appreciated goods.

As I reflect on this experience, I have a few thoughts to share with you:

  1. There are many needs in our community.  I was amazed at the seemingly endless stream of cars – of people – that came to receive help with their personal groceries.  From 9am until around 3:45pm, there were perhaps one or two moments when the line of cars dwindled down to one or two.  The work was constant and unending.  When the final cars had left the distribution area, I had trouble believing that the work was really done.  I was struck by how many individuals within driving distance of Dow Diamond came for help with groceries.  That made me think:  do any of these folks live in the neighborhood of our church, so we might continue to reach out to them in Christ’s love?
  2. Some folks don’t have a car.  This is easy for us to forget, especially those of us who have a car (or two or three) and have always enjoyed ease of transportation.  Perhaps ten or twelve of the people who came through the line on Saturday did so on foot or on bicycle.  I helped a couple pack their backpacks full of food supplies and load bags of groceries onto their bicycles’ handlebars.  They made two trips before all their goods made it home, which thankfully was not far away.  Others arranged for their groceries to be driven home in volunteers’ cars.  That made me think:  what do we take for granted?
  3. Everyone was grateful.  I was blessed to serve at the main “point of contact” – where groceries and trunks met each other, where volunteers and guests met each other.  Through the span of over 900 vehicles, I never saw at individual upset, angry, frustrated, or disappointed, either with the long wait in line (several hours for some) or with the food gifts.  Some folks I saw were literally jumping up and down in excitement for what they were receiving; one lady called this “Christmas in September.”  That made me think:  how can we be more grateful on a daily basis?
  4. All of this was done in the name of Christ.  We didn’t push the gospel on people; we didn’t ask people if they knew Jesus as their Savior; we didn’t even check to see if they really needed this help.  This was a “come one, come all” event.  Anyone and everyone was invited to come and receive a blessing from God, orchestrated and organized and worked out by the hands of fellow disciples of Christ.  That made me think:  how can we continue to share Christ’s love with people in the future?

Here’s a short video about this event.  Please take a few minutes to watch it!

–Pastor David