We begin this year’s “Focus 40” season (the Church of God version of Lent) by examining John 15:9-17, a passage in which Jesus gives his disciples one command: to love each other as he has loved them. In our culture of over-the-top expressions of emotional love, how can we as Christians reclaim an understanding of God’s extreme love for us? Click below to hear Pastor David’s sermon on this passage.
Reflections on Guatemala
I sit here on a snowy Thursday morning and find myself reflecting on how, just one week ago, several of us from Mt. Haley were experiencing different weather, a different language, a different culture, and a different sense of community.
We as a church have been building up for this Guatemala “Shack Attack” trip for quite some time. We gave over $2,500 toward expenses for the trip and, more importantly, for a house to be built for a family in Guatemala City. We joined hands with a neighboring church, Meridian Church of God, to bring about this experience, in which we shared the love of Christ with hundreds of children and adults and in which we learned a great deal about ourselves and our own way of life. I’d like to share with you a few of the lessons I learned on this trip.
- Though cultures differ greatly, family is universally important. The house we worked on will soon be home to a family of five, and yet it is very small – certainly smaller than our youth room at church. This family will make this newly constructed space their home, and that is quite significant. We also visited the home of a family whose house was built this time last year – a truly beautiful space that has quickly become their home in the past few months. Having a space for families to live life, to build relationships, to grow together – this is a crucial component of life both in the Guatemalan community we visited and for us here in the States. What is your family life like? What space have you created for those relationships?
- Though languages differ greatly, Christian love is universally understood. We saw this lesson most clearly when we attended a Sunday morning worship service in the church just a hundred yards down the railroad tracks from the house construction location. We witnessed laughter, greetings, and hugs among the Christian community there. We participated in tremendous worship of our Lord with familiar and unfamiliar songs sung in Spanish. We experienced a remarkable display of Christian humility through a public confession of sin, and we saw the body of Christ extend forgiveness to those who made that confession. Where do you see Christian love expressed in your life? How would your life change if you saw it more clearly?
- Though personalities differ greatly, relationships are universally meaningful.
Andrea and Julia Many of the children we met in Guatemala were gregarious, excited to see us, talkative, and very expressive. Some, however, were much more quiet and reserved – like me! While I watched the dozens of children we saw each day, I noticed that some children, just like here at home, tended to be in the center of attention, while others stayed on the edges of the group. And then, on our last day at “the tracks,” two young girls appeared at my side: Andrea and Julia. These two girls, eight and seven years old, respectively, were very shy and not very talkative. But they plopped themselves down next to me and were content just to be next to me or to be held on my lap for the bulk of the day. Who are the “overlooked” people in your daily life? Are you one of them? How can God use your personality to be a blessing to people around you?
Whether in the sunshine or in the snow, whether in 70 degree weather or 20 degree weather, God is at work in people’s lives. I am excited to continue bringing about the kingdom of God in our own community after seeing it at work in Guatemala City last week! Will you join me in our ongoing mission work?
–Pastor David
Serving in Obedience
Pastor David, Pastor Jerry, and twelve other people recently returned from a week-long mission trip to Guatemala. While there, our two-church team helped to build a house for a local family and built relationships with children and adults in the community. Click below to hear Pastor David reflect on Luke 5:1-11 and its relationship to a theme that was on his mind during the Guatemala trip: the meaning of making space.
Empowered for Kingdom Service
This Sunday, Pastor David preached on Luke 4:14-21, the story of Jesus’s first sermon in his hometown, Nazareth. What do Jesus’s choice of sermon text and Luke’s presentation of the story have to do with the walk of discipleship today? And how does this connect to our church’s Guatemala mission trip which departs this Friday? Click below to hear this week’s sermon and the accompanying commissioning prayer for our team.
Ash Wednesday Service
What is Ash Wednesday? Why are we having a church service on that evening? Isn’t that something that only Catholics do? Pastor David, do you really expect us to put dirty ashes on our foreheads?
Those are all good questions, so don’t be afraid to ask them. I’d like to try to answer them now for you so that you have a better idea of what this experience will be like. To my knowledge, Mt. Haley has not had an Ash Wednesday service in a very long time, if ever, and certainly not in the past few years.
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the season preceding Good Friday and Easter. Typically, Lent is understood as a forty day period, the same length of time that Jesus spent in prayer and fasting in the wilderness before beginning his ministry (Luke 4:1-13). Therefore many Christians will dedicate the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter to prayer and fasting. (That is why people often speak of “giving up something for Lent.”)
Ashes are a biblical sign of mourning and repentance (Job 42:3-6). Also, ashes remind us that we are dust and to dust we will return (Genesis 3:19). That biblical truth is found in the midst of the story which explains why people die: death is a direct result of our sinfulness. So in the period of time that precedes Easter, Christians remember how our sinfulness separates us from God. Only then does it make sense to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection on Easter Sunday: he has conquered sin and death, and those who are in Christ experience victory over both.
I challenge you, then, to begin the season of Lent by coming to worship God at 7pm on Ash Wednesday, February 13. This type of service is practiced by many different Christian groups, including but not limited to Roman Catholics. We at Mt. Haley will not put ashes on our foreheads, but we will reflect on our need for repentance and forgiveness. My prayer is that this service will help us enter a reflective state of mind throughout Lent, so that we might remember the beauty of Maundy Thursday, comprehend the magnitude of Good Friday, and celebrate wholeheartedly the victory of Easter Sunday.
–Pastor David
State of the Church
Every year, the President of the United States gives a “State of the Union” address. This speech is usually designed to look back on the past year and to look ahead toward the opportunities in the future. Today, I’d like for us to think about the “State of the Church” – specifically, the state of Mt. Haley Church of God.
Looking back on the past year in the life of this church, I see many high points. We celebrated six baptisms on Easter Sunday. We remodeled our youth room and have seen it begin to fill up on Sunday evenings with teenagers searching for God. We have branched out with a weekly meeting for our sixth-grade youth, which has been very profitable and consistent. We saw two adult discipleship groups spring up, a men’s and a women’s group, which met specific spiritual and relational needs for their members. We worked with several local ministry organizations, such as the Mid-Michigan Teen Challenge and the Pregnancy Resource Center. We held monthly men’s breakfasts for consistently strong groups of men from our community. We learned about our spiritual giftedness and began thinking about how to put those gifts to use in creative ways.
Early in 2012, we asked the Lord for a reprieve from a series of deaths among our elderly members, and he saw fit to give us emotional rest for most of the year. We channeled our energy toward positive improvements and ministry activities including our sound system upgrade, our upcoming Guatemala mission trip, and our sponsorship of a delegate to attend this June’s Global Gathering in Anderson.
We engaged in a fourteen-week study of the Book of Revelation on Sunday evenings. A strong, consistent group of disciples came week after week to learn about this most confusing and challenging book of the Bible and about how the Church of God has interpreted it in the past century. We were unafraid to ask difficult questions about scripture and our identity as people of God. We found encouragement and challenge as we studied this book together.
All these and more are blessings from the Lord, reasons for us to celebrate his grace and give thanks for his guidance. What, then, are the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead? (These, by the way, can serve as areas of prayer for the coming year.)
We have seen new faces in our Sunday morning worship services, and for this we give thanks to God. Yet our average attendance in 2012 was exactly the same as in 2011. Real growth (numeric and spiritual) and consistent corporate worship are growing edges for us.
Our church council is in a prolonged state of transition. Presently, we are searching for leaders to fill two specific leadership roles in the church. This is an ongoing need for us, because the leadership of the congregation helps to set the tone for the congregation as a whole.
Our children’s ministry has relaxed in the past several months for many good reasons. As we move ahead, this is one area that will need our collective attention: how shall we minister to children? (Hint: an effective way to attract adults to the church is to provide excellent ministries for their children.)
Our community and global outreach is continuing to shift and grow. How can we become more aware of our neighbors and their needs? How best can we meet the needs of people in our neighborhood so that the love of Christ shines through in all we do? How can we make an impact for the kingdom of God in the world at large?
Our personal and corporate walks with the Lord must continue to move ahead. We are called to grow in Christlikeness so that worship of God becomes something automatic for us: not just Sunday morning attendance but an everyday kind of Christian faith.
My vision for Mt. Haley in 2013 is that we would become a people actively committed to our twofold mission, which is to grow in discipleship and to reach out to our world in the love of Christ. Programs and people may come and go, but the goal remains the same: to glorify God through our partnership together. May God be blessed by our efforts in this new year!
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV)
–Pastor David
Thank you!
This is, perhaps, a bit belated, but I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you in the congregation for your kind outpouring of gifts, cards, chocolates (especially those!), and warm wishes during the recent Christmas season. It is an honor to serve as your pastor, and Tara and I appreciated reading each card, reflecting on each family, and giving thanks for such a group of people with whom we have the privilege of working. So thank you, one and all, for your many thoughtful gifts in the past month or so.
The letter known as James, written so many years ago, communicates relevant truths about gift-giving that can be useful for all of us in such a time as this. In the early verses of this short letter, the author encourages Christians to remain faithful to the Lord even in times of testing. Of course, the earliest Christians – along with some Christians in certain parts of today’s world – faced much more serious persecutions and trials than we experience in contemporary Western culture. Yet the first gift that James mentions as being worthy of requesting from God is the same gift for which King Solomon yearned in the Old Testament days: the gift of wisdom. (See James 1:5.)
Oh, that we might all be wise in our living! I ask the Lord frequently for wisdom in my service as your pastor; I hope that you ask God for wisdom frequently in your daily vocations, as well. As generously as Mt. Haley showered Tara and me with Christmas gifts and cards last month, so much more generously will our God shower wisdom on those who ask him for it sincerely and in faith.
For as James teaches us, “All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change” (James 1:17 NET). How comforting to know that God’s character never changes: that he is always generous, giving, and forgiving; that he is steadfast, consistent, and just. The new life he has planted in us through Jesus Christ (see James 1:18) is perhaps the greatest gift God has given us, although it requires (and inspires) us to strive toward holiness and righteousness on an everyday basis.
God’s gift of life-changing wisdom causes the faithful to desire to live differently in ways that please the Giver. In the same way, those who receive gifts from fellow human beings strive to honor their relationships so that the gifts do not fall empty and become meaningless. Have you ever received a gift from someone and then worked diligently to strengthen that relationship because of that gift? So should it be with our relationship with the Lord, in response to his gift of wisdom.
And so it will be in my relationship with you as Pastor of Mt. Haley Church of God. In the new year, I pledge to renew my efforts to lead this congregation in ways that please God, the giver of all good and perfect gifts. To God be the glory in 2013!
–Pastor David
Our Global Journey
What happens when three churches in different locations have pastors who are good friends with each other? What happens when a call goes out for churches to join forces to support the upcoming Global Gathering this June in Anderson? And how does our work together spring up from the example found in Philippians 4:10-20? Click below to hear this joint sermon from Pastor David, Pastor Jonathan, and Pastor Shannon:
Starting a Journey
The life of faith is a journey… When Jesus began his ministry around age 30, a couple of strange things happened: John the Baptist preached an unusual message, and Jesus had a unique post-baptism experience. What sense can we make of these events, and what do they have to do with life today? Click below to hear Pastor David’s sermon on Luke 3:15-23a.
A New Resolution
Pastor David offers one resolution for us to consider as we enter a new year. What do the story of the Wise Men visiting Jesus and the story of the Israelites following God’s cloud / pillar of fire have in common? Click below to hear Pastor David’s message on Matthew 2:1-12 and Numbers 9:15-23.