Home For Christmas

     I think that we can all relate to Clark Griswold in the movie "Griswold's Family Vacation." After doing everything in his power to have his family experience a 'good old fashioned family Christmas,' everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. Relatives bring unwanted and unruly pets into the home, the Christmas tree is set ablaze by cat chewed Christmas tree lights, and a rouge squirrel in the replacement tree causes a squirrel verses dog chase leaving the Griswold home almost uninhabitable! Because of this, the relatives decide to throw in the towel on this 'fun old fashioned Christmas.' Their giving up, prompts this (pastorally edited) rant from Clark:

 Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny (bleep) Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white (caboose) down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of (folks) this side of the nuthouse.

    In the same way, we try and try to capture this magical feeling  with some forced family fun and it never lives up to our expectations. However, are these expectations the one's we ought to have? Is this what the very first Christmas looked like? In the opening chapters of Luke, we find the story of the first Christmas and it is not nearly as shiny, pristine, and perfect as our expectations normally are.

    A poor, unwed, teenager, becomes very unexpectedly pregnant. Despite the social, religious, and legal rejection that it carried, Mary and Joseph (with a little angelic help) decide to continue their engagement and traverse the difficult road from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Mary is very pregnant and all the homes very full. Mary is forced to deliver Jesus, Love's pure light, in a dirty and smelly manger, where the animals were kept. To say this was a messy and un-pristine way for God to come to earth would be the understatement of the millennium!

     There has only been one person in the history of creation to be able to choose where He was born, Jesus Christ! He did not choose to make his home for that first Christmas a perfect, pristine and mess free family. Instead, He made His home among us in the dirty, gritty, and very messy stuff of our lives. If any of us are experiencing a full blown, four alarm, holiday emergency, take heart. The angel in Luke 2 reminds us all that even in the messiness of Bethlehem, and our lives,  the Lord gives us "good news that willcause great joy for all the people!" This is the news of the arrival of a Savior that does not wait for us to have our lives all figured out. Instead, He is a Savior who is our Emmanuel (God with us) in the midst of our messy, chaotic, and sometimes unpredictable lives.

     As we come home for Christmas, let us consider the fact that Christmas is not our birthday, it is Jesus' birthday. Let us consider how to honor Him by sacrificially giving to others just as He sacrificially gave Himself so that we might have life and have it abundantly!

Many Christmas Blessings  from our family to yours!

Pastor Bill, Brittany and Billy

New Channel on Viemo!

Greetings everyone,

I have just started a channel on Veimo with recordings of some of the worship services at Christ UMC. If you are interested in checking out some of the videos here is the link: https://vimeo.com/channels/622526#!

Giving Thanks

Mark 6:38-44

38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”

When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”

39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand. 

This month we will, as a nation, give thanks. Celebrating by eating too much food, seeing too much family, watching too much football and, hopefully, having too much fun doing it! As we approach this day of thanks I thought we could reflect on a biblical model of giving thanks.

In Mark 6:30-44 we find Jesus inviting the disciples into a period and place of rest. However, the crowed followed them. Instead of getting frustrated, Jesus feels compassion for these folks. So much compassion He decides to feed them.

What is interesting is that the disciples focus on what they do not have by saying “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” In contrast, Jesus wants to focus on what they do have by saying, ““How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” The rest of the story can only be described as miraculous. The disciples come up with five loaves of bread and two fish to feed over 5,000 people. Being the healthy eater that I am, I would definitely look at this meager offering with despair. However, Jesus gives thanks to His heavenly Father for it then tells His disciples to feed the people. Amazingly, everyone gets their fill and they have twelve baskets of left overs (thus a biblical basis for having leftovers, I always knew my mom had a good reason for cooking too much, but I digress).

In a similar way we can often look at our meager resources and think, “This cannot be enough to satisfy the overwhelming need that is out there!” We see all of the starving children in the world on television, abused kids next door, and suffering all around and feel helpless to make a difference. However, our job is not to worry about what we do not have but what we do have. If we give our gifts, time, energy, and money into building the kingdom of God the Holy Spirit will multiply our efforts. 

So, as we celebrate Thanksgiving this year let's celebrate as Christians. Christians who are thankful for what we do have and not focused on what we do not have. Christians who surrender to the Lord what little, time, talent, energy, and money that we do have. Surrendering it trusting that, while we might plant and water, God will give the increase (1 Corinthians 3). Increasing His kingdom around us so that, in looking at the sea of human need, we might experience a miracle of our own! 

All in One Lifetime!

An amazing quote by Malcolm Muggeridge:

“We look back on history and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counter-revolutions, wealth accumulating and wealth dispersed, one nation dominant and then another. Shakespeare speaks of ‘the rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon.’
In one lifetime I have seen my own fellow countrymen ruling over a quarter of the world, the great majority of them convinced, in the words of what is still a favorite song, that, ‘God who’s made the mighty would make them mightier yet.’ I’ve heard a crazed, cracked Austrian proclaim to the world the establishment of a German Reich that would last a thousand years; an Italian clown announce that he would restart the calendar to begin his own assumption of power. I’ve heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as a wiser than Solomon, more enlightened than Ashoka, more humane than Marcus Aurelius. I’ve seen America wealthier and in terms of weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that Americans, had they so wished, could have outdone an Alexander or a Julius Caesar in the range and scale of their conquests. All in one little lifetime. All gone with the wind.
“England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keep her motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate.
All in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.
“Behind the debris of these self-styled, sullen supermen and imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone mankind might still have hope. The person of Jesus Christ.”

http://www.wordsntone.com/index.php/site/comments/who_is_jesus_the_central_question/

Club or Kingdom

1 Peter 2:9-10 says:

9 But you are a chosen people,(S) a royal priesthood,(T) a holy nation,(U) God’s special possession,(V) that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.(W) 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;(X) once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

      One of my favorite people in the whole world is Dave Scavuzzo. One of the reasons for this is because Dave has an uncanny way of speaking the truth in such a way that it sticks. This past conference Dave was giving a sort of farewell address as District Superintendent because he has taken the role as senior pastor at Strongsville UMC. While he was talking he made the excellent observation that, "The only two human institutions that do not change are cemeteries and churches doing their best impression of one!"
     This comment received an appropriate laugh but I think Dave is on to something. Why is it that church's are so resistant to change? Why is it that many church's choose to go the way of the cemeteries rather than embrace the risk of change? Some say that is simply because change is difficult. Other's say that the whole world is changing and folks want one thing to stay the same, their church. These, and other reasons, may all have truth in them but I think there is a deeper more important issue at work here.
     I believe something deeper is at work because companies change despite the difficulties, and people are increasingly finding stability in other places (friends, family etc). The deeper issue at work is a fundamental understanding, or misunderstanding, of the nature of the church. The deepest question is not why church's doing their best impression of a graveyard? The deepest question is are church's aware that the grave of Jesus is empty!
     I mean really aware of it. Aware of the fact that Jesus is not dead but He is living, supposedly, through His church. After all Paul does not say that we are like the body of Christ or we can see our selves like the body of Christ. He said "you ARE the body of Christ," (1 Corinthians 12:27)! As the body of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords we are not meant to simply maintain a church 'club.' A club that is ran and directed by the preferences of its members. Instead, we are supposed to be a kingdom. A "chosen people royal priesthood, a holy nation" that is called to "declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light." 
     Sometimes the decision making discussions in church's scare me. It frightens me when people talk about what they want to do with 'their church.' If it is a Christian church it does not belong to the members. It belongs to JESUS CHRIST THE RISEN ONE!!!!! We are not working toward a club where everyone's preferences are met but a kingdom where the one good King rules and reigns. 
     This King's parting words to the founders of the church was not to sit in a circle and sing 'Cum By A." Instead His parting orders were to 

"go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

     If we follow the orders of our One True King we will have the great privilege of experiencing His power, grace, and purpose in or lives. More importantly, however, we will be a part of spreading a Kingdom. Not a club with the limited goal of appeasing its members. Instead a Kingdom with the eternal purpose of shining light in the darkness, hope for the hopeless, love for the loveless, and Resurrection Life for those crushed by death!

So which would you like to join, a club or The Kingdom?

William Wendell's Page

William Wendell's Page

Greetings everyone,

This Sunday Pat and I will be taking on the Warrior Dash to benefit St. Jude's hospital. If you are interested in giving a last minute donation click on the link above!

Blessings,
bill

The Least of These

In Matthew 25:40 our Lord says, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." 

I had the privilege of serving as a counselor in a camp called Royal Family Kids Camp this past week. This is a camp for children who have been abused and neglected. These children's stories bring about a combination of rage and hurt to my heart. Rage toward the person who has done these awful things and hurt for the children. In many ways these kids have been made 'the least of these' because their earthly parents have let them down.

As I am getting settled back into the work of pastoral ministry, I am looking around the landscape of the church in general and am appalled. We are so obsessed with petty politics and church turf wars that 'the least of these' go anywhere but church for acceptance, love and approval.  While the church is fighting over worship style and what color to put in the sanctuary these children never hear about their Heavenly Father who will never leave, or forsake them.

This comes into sharp focus as the church I serve engages in ministries to children, including children with special needs. The stories of parents being told that they and their 'normal children' are welcome but their 'other' child has to stay home make me sick.

My prayer for anyone reading this is that we, as the faithful church of Jesus Christ, would take our disgust for the church's behavior and turn it into energy. Energy to get over ourselves and truly serve those the world calls 'the least of these.' Not so that they can fill our coffers or pews but so that they might know the love of a God:

who did not consider His own God-ness something to be used to his own advantage;7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness.8 And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross!
(pastor Bill translation in italics)  (Philippians 2:7-8)

May we, like Christ, empty ourselves so that 'the least of these' may be filled. Filled with the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ with the love of their Heavenly Father. So that in the church little boys can be Kings and little girls can be Queens, clothed in His majesty!

William Wendell's Page

William Wendell's Page

Greetings everyone! For the second year Pat and I are going to be warriors for St. Jude's Warrior dash. 

While Pat and I will be battling the distance and obstacles the real warriors are the kids that St. Jude helps! These are amazing brave children of God that have been put in a difficult situation. If you feel called to it, please donate to by clicking the link below to help support me in this great cause!

Three in One?

John 14:15-21:15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

I am terrible at math. I am forever envious of those like my younger brother that are like human calculators! However, I often tell people that I knew theology was going to be my wheelhouse upon discovering that, in Christian Theology, 1+1+1=1! This past Sunday was Trinity Sunday and I decided to post some musings on the doctrine that Alan Bevere appropriately says is not an appendix to our doctrine of God but IS our doctrine of God (http://www.allanbevere.com/2013/05/the-trinity-is-not-appendix-to.html)!

In this post I will deal with three different aspects of this reveled mystery (get it? Three aspects one post, a Trinitarian blog post about a Trinitarian God! Yeah, I'm about as subtle as a sledge hammer.). I will first deal with the philosophical aspect then the theological aspect and conclude with the practical aspect.

First, the philosophical aspect of the Trinity. 

Before even diving into the Trinity in general I think it is important to acknowledge the fact of God's incomprehensibility. Put differently  we will never be able to completely comprehend God. Anyone who puts very much thought into the concept of God will have to admit this. We are finite, time and space bound, creatures. God is not bound by space and time and is, therefore, beyond our full comprehension. Some of my contemporaries have taken this truth and made the incorrect assumption that God is therefore unknowable. Therefore, they reason, all expressions of God are equally valid.

This is, at it's core, faulty reasoning. I am beyond the comprehension of  my puppies. Does that mean that they cannot 'know' me. Of course not! I have made myself knowable to them. By training them, loving them, and feeding them I have enabled them to know me as their master. In the same way, God loves us enough to reveal Himself to us even though He knows we are unable to fully understand Him. I, for one, think it is an excellent complement God has paid us by revealing Himself to us so much so that we can know Him but not fully comprehend Him. In other words, I like the fact that God, in His very essence, reminds us that He is God and we are not.

So, does this get us off the hook for trying to understand the Trinity to the best of our ability? Because you can tell this is not the end of the blog you have probably already guessed that the answer is no. The technical term for the objection normally raised over this doctrine is that it breaks the law of noncontradiction. This is a classical philosophical law which states that two contradictory things cannot be true. For example I cannot be both married and a bachelor, the terms are mutually exclusive. People use this law every time they cross a busy street. As Ravi Zacharias famously said, "Even in India we look both ways before we cross the street. It is not me and the bus it is me or the bus." The critique against the Christian doctrine of God is that we are stating that is one and three at the same time. If something is one it cannot also be three and visa versa.

This critique would be devastating if Christians were claiming that God is three AND one but we don't we are claiming that God is three IN one. This may seem like a mere semantical difference at first but the difference between "and" and "in" is the difference between heresy and orthodoxy. As Christians we claim that God is one in essence and three in persons. To say that has multiple essences is called Tri-theism and to claim that God is only one distinct person is called Modalism. Put differently, when it comes to God's essence He is always one, never three. Likewise in God's personhood He is always there, never one.

For example it was not the Father or the Spirit that was crucified God the Son was crucified for our sins. In terms of essence the Spirit is not 'lesser' than the Son and Father but co-eternal with them. One way the one essence nature of the Trinity plays out is that all three members of the Trinity always act together for one purpose. For example, the Father, sends the Son to reconcile the world back to Himself through the power of the Spirit. This is not the only aspect of God's oneness. If it were we would slip intro modalism.

Is this just theological jargon designed to talk around the question? Absolutely not, I am simply attempting to frame the discussion properly. In terms of philosophical comprehension I think the best we can do is use analogies. Now, before diving into my favorite analogy I have a disclaimer. No analogy is perfect! I think this one is very helpful in our comprehension, but I am sure, if taken too far, it would commit some form of heresy. As I said before God is beyond our comprehension.

Having said that, this analogy comes from Augustine and I find it helpful. We have one mind in three parts, memory, desire, and will. We do not have three minds and our memory, desires, and will are all distinct. Also, these three aspects of our mind never act alone but as one essence. For example, imagine a child who accidentally puts his or her hand on a hot stove. It the heat would hurt them. The next time the child approaches a hot stove his or her memory will remind the desire of the pain. The desire does not like pain so it tells the will not to touch the burner. So the child pulls his or her hand away instinctively. In the same way just as the Son prays to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. One God three persons in communication and relationship.

The second aspect is the theological aspect of the Trinity.

I have often told people that the Trinity solves more problems than it causes. If God is not triune there seems to be at least two other options. There are multiple gods or God is a modatic or singular entity. There are theological problems with both of these.

If God is not one than He can be divided. In other words, in some ways, capricious gods like those of  ancient Greece or Rome. These 'gods' are really not God in the since that the Christian means anyway. What I mean by this is that the Roman and Greek gods are exactly what we would expect if humans made up gods. They are exactly what we would expect because they are merely powerful humans.  There power is great but limited. They can be tricked, so they are not omniscient, they are only in one place so they are not omnipresent, and they defeated by other gods so they are not omnipotent.

The other alternative is a more modatic or unitarian understanding of God. This is the concept that Muslims hold to. The difficulty with this understanding of God is that, before creation, God was not loving because there was no one to be loving toward. Put differently God created us so that He could be loving, so that he could be sovereign, or because he was lonely. I am sure there are other explanations of why a non-triune God would create the universe but it is not the same reason our Trinitarian God has.

A Trinitarian understanding of God gives another reason for creation, and meaning for life. The Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has always been in loving relationship within Himself, even before the creation. In other words, in Christian theology we have a love preceding creation understanding. The reason God created the universe is not because He was lonely, or needed someone to be sovereign over. Instead, the nature of true love reached out to a beloved outside of itself. This is why husbands and wife, instinctively, desire to have children. The loving relationship between them literally reaches out to a beloved outside of themselves. This is probably the most dramatic example of the image of God within us.

Beyond creation, the Trinitarian God is loving community in essence that invites us in. Thus in 14 Jesus was inviting us into relationship with the ground of all that is real when saying that He "will not leave us as orphans," (18). Our heavenly Father sends His Son on a mission to reconcile a broken and hurting world back to Himself and we have the privilege of becoming apart of this mission and relationship by the power of the Holy Spirit!

The final aspect is the practical aspect of the Trinity.

Now we have finally arrived at the 'so what' portion of the blog. Why do we bother with this doctrine if it causes us to go into so much explanation and confusion? The first answer is because it is how God has reveals Himself to us in scripture and is therefore true. However, there is a practical aspect to this doctrine. An aspect that makes this doctrine not only one that we must hold on to with our heads but also with our hearts!

In Genesis God creates us in His image (see Genesis 1:17). The implications of this go far beyond this post but the one I want to focus on is what does it mean to be made in the image of a God that is Trinity. The Trinity shows us that God is loving relationship, in His very essence. In the same way, we are beings designed for loving relationship. That is why we cannot be Lone Ranger Christians! Our spiritual lives are not meant to be lived out in an individualistic way but in the midst of community. This community is called the church.

Another practical implication of the Trinity is the nature of mission and ministry. We, as Christians, are not on our own mission empowered by our own strength and this mission is not dictated to us by the world. Instead we are continuing Christ's mission the He was sent on from the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the world!

This means that our opinions are irrelevant when it comes to how to run the ministry we have been given. Instead, it is Christ's mission and the way we live it out needs to be consistent with His Lordship. Likewise the many loyalties and wants of the world tearing at us are irrelevant to how we ought to do ministry. Instead, what is critical are the needs of the world as they are given to us by the Father. Finally, our efforts are not mere human efforts but they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Dr. Steve Semands says that ministry:

demands more than our best, more than anything we have to offer. To participate in the ongoing ministry of Jesus, to do what the Father is doing, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Much more, of course could be said. However I will close this post with a Trinitarian question. How can we allow the Holy Spirit to empower and change us in order that we might engage in Christ's mission from the Father so that we might help to bring a hurting and lost world back to its loving Creator?

Who is He?

In this age of religious pluralism it has become rather un-politically correct to claim yourself to be a 'Jesus Only' Christian (as if there are other kinds). Instead, it seems to have become popular to proclaim Jesus as a 'great moral teacher' of some kind. To this C.S. Lewis has famously responded by stating:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."^[5] 

 This has been called the Lewis's 'trilemma,' referring to a forced option between believing the Jesus was either Lord (who He claimed to be), Liar (He knew He was not God but lied about it), or a Lunatic (was not God but sincerely believed it).

This trilemma has fell onto some hard times but I am willing to argue the core of what Lewis was getting at rings true.

One criticism is that Lewis assumes the historicity of the New Testament. This claim essentially says that Lewis left out a third option. The option that Jesus' divinity could have been an invention of the early church and inserted into His biographies (the four gospels). The problems with this criticism are many.

First, if Jesus' claims of divinity were an invention of the early church we would expect some kind of organic growth of the belief. Put differently, if Jesus' divinity was a legend propagated by the early church we would expect the first writings about Him to be modest claims about His being a good moral teacher and later writings push His divinity. The truth is, however, that the earliest documents we have do not portray Jesus as a great moral teacher but as the Risen Son of God (see Galatians 1). Second, the first time we have any evidence of anyone claiming that Jesus was not divine is through Arianism around 300AD. This is well after the last New Testament document was written.

Second, we have absolutely no evidence of any other Jewish messianic group making their messiah into a legendary figure. As much as we want to put Jesus into our box He won't do it! Jesus was a first century Jewish carpenter not a Germanic or Anglo Saxon king like King Arthur.  

For more on the ridiculousness of the assertion that Jesus' divinity was an invention of the early church you can check out these four youtube clips:

Another criticism is that Jesus could have thought himself to be a guru. That when Jesus refers to himself as God He meant he was god (small g) along with everything else. Just as Jesus was not a king of Germanic, Viking, or Anglo Saxon descent neither was he Indian. This concept was completely foreign to the Judeo ethic in which Jesus lived. Do the critics really think that Jesus was crucified because He was proclaiming to be god along with everything else? If this was how Hebrews thought, it would have been no big deal. 

It is clear from anyone who has read the Old and New Testaments that the writers believed God to be Holy. Meaning that God was wholly other, working through creation but completely above it. This is why John refers to Jesus as the 'Word' become flesh in John 1. This would have reminded the readers of that rich philosophical tradition of the Greeks. Fort them the 'Word' was the eternal uncreated principal or reason of the universe. The 'Word' was also thought to be the 'unmoved mover' that was before creation, began creation, and will be here when the creation is gone. That's why it was so startling when John says that 'the word began flesh and dwelt among us' (John 1:14). 

There is much more to say about the criticisms however there is one thing the critics never seem to address. This is the fact that many have claimed to be God. None of them have been attached to a major religion. Buddha was probably an atheist  Muhammad believed himself to be a prophet, and Confucius was not even a religious philosopher but an ethicist. Of those to claim deity, some have been raving lunatics that we now hospitalize  some have been power hungry dictators that we now demonize but NOBODY has believed them to be God or even to be a god after their death. 

However much people want to manipulate, mock, minimize and criticise Lewis' argument Jesus' question is still put to all of us: 

Jesus asked His disciples “Who do people say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

But the question that Jesus really wants us to answer is "what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:-27-30)

So who is He to you? 

Allan R. Bevere: The Trinity Is Not an Appendix to the Christian Do...

Allan R. Bevere: The Trinity Is Not an Appendix to the Christian Do...: This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, which is appropriately observed after Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is important that we no...

William Wendell's Page

Greetings everyone! For the second year Pat and I are going to be warriors for St. Jude's Warrior dash. 

While Pat and I will be battling the distance and obstacles the real warriors are the kids that St. Jude helps! These are amazing brave children of God that have been put in a difficult situation. If you feel called to it, please donate to by clicking the link below to help support me in this great cause!

William Wendell's Page

Together

Luke 10:1-3:

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.

When someone uses the word 'evangelism' many images spring into people's mind. A person dressed like  the third blues brother on a busy street corner. This blues brother seems to always have a bullhorn, and placard with Scriptures (usually misinterpreted) and flames painted on, screaming "THE END IS NEAR!!" Perhaps some think of Ernest Angley enthusiastically saying, 'Be heeeaaled!' (I do, after all, live in Akron Ohio).

Because of this, among other reasons, I think people push off organized religion and lean more toward a vague 'spirituality.' Allan Bevere has done an excellent post on how being "spiritual but not religious" seems to encourage a safe, discipleship-less, un-transformed sort of faith (http://www.allanbevere.com/2013/04/on-being-religious-but-not-spiritual.html). One thing that Allan said grabbed my attention:

Discipleship is not equivalent to some vague individualistic spirituality in which I judge myself to be basically OK as I am because God thinks I'm OK as I am.

This kind of vague spirituality does seem to breed a 'Lone Ranger' mentality. As one of my colleagues commented it is even worse than the Loan Ranger, at least he had he had Tonto and his horse Silver!  

Scared away from 'organized religion' because of the negative images mentioned above combined with the allure of easy, private, consumer driven 'spirituality' many are nervous or even dead set against anything that even smells like evangelism. 

All though I am unsure what evangelism exactly smells like, when it is mentioned it is not uncommon to hear things like, "I don't want to offend anyone" or "religion and faith issues are private matters." This may be true of a safe, vague, individualistic 'spirituality' but it is not true of the gospel of Jesus Christ! After all Jesus did say, "Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels," (Luke 9:26). Also, while I would never want to offend anyone unnecessarily, the Gospel is offensive! In the middle of our message is a crucifix of the only innocent human being on earth! We, as Christians, must strive to have the gospel be the ONLY offence.

Sometimes I worry, am I ashamed of the gospel? Do I deny the gospel by my silence? As one examines the people in the New Testament one discovers that not only were they unafraid to share the good news of Jesus Christ, you could not shut them up about it!

So is this a call to gather up our bullhorns, paint our placards, and get ready to 'evangelize' by fire? Not quite. Another thing conspicuously missing from the current church landscape is doing evangelism as a community. It is no mistake the Jesus did not send the 72 disciples out as loan rangers but in pairs. If we are inviting people into loving community, with God and His people, should we not do it through loving community? In other words why are we not sharing the good news TOGETHER!? After all we are, very often, being sent into places where we feel as if we are 'sheep among the wolves.' 

George Hunter wrote an excellent took entitled "The Celtic Way of Evangelism." In this book Dr. Hunter contrasts the Celtic way of evangelism and the Roman model of evangelism. In the Roman model People were presented with the gospel asked to decide whether to commit or not and then the evangelized had fellowship with the church. In the Celtic model, by contrast, people were invited into fellowship with Christian communities, ministry happened through conversations, and living together, then people were asked if they wanted to make a commitment. As Dr. Hunter recognizes, The Celtic model reflects the adage that, for most people, "Christianity is more caught than taught."

The Celts formed Christian communities right next to pagan communities and invited them in from there. This was literally meeting people where they were at, much like Jesus coming down into human form to meet us where we are at. At the end of the book Dr. Hunter challenges the reader to think of ways we can position ourselves next to, or in the midst of, un-evangelized communities and invite them in for fellowship and discussion. 

So, instead of the standard 'don't ask don't tell' and confrontational forms of evangelism, I think we should take a hint from the Celts, and even more so, Jesus. We should tell people about the love of Jesus Christ, not as Loan Rangers with out Silver and Tonto, but together!

In what ways can we invite people into the body of Christ so that we might point toward the healing, transformative power of the gospel?

All things new

Revelation 21:3-5

 “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

⁵ He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

Elie Wiesel wrote this:

“Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.Behind me, I heard the same man asking:"For God's sake, where is God?"And from within me, I heard a voice answer:"Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..." Any other answer would have been blasphemous.

In the video I posted above the mother of Krystle Campbell speaks to the press. In this video she makes the statement that none of it makes sense. She says that Krystle was a good person, hard worker, and everyone loved her.

Often, life does not seem to make sense. The innocent suffer and there seems to be no justice or end in sight. Not knowing what to do, many well meaning Christians, and even non Christians, break out old, tired and unhelpful platitudes. We have all heard them, "God just wanted another angel for His garden," or, "everything happens for a reason." 

While it is true that there is a reason this awful tragedy happened and God does delight in reuniting with His sons and daughters, these do not quite scratch the itch. As the man in Wiesel's story said in the midst of the young boy suffering, "For God's sake, where is God?" Where is God in the middle of suffering? Does He just let us languish under the pain and absurdity of the universe we find ourselves in?

It is for this reason that many turn away from God. However, what would happen if, instead of turning away, we would turn toward how God deals with the suffering of the innocent. As followers of Christ we do not worship a God who is far off from our suffering. Quite the contrary, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that "we do not have a High Priest that is unable to empathize with us" (4:15).

On the cross, Jesus died for the sins we are guilty of, but He also died for all of the sins we are innocent victims of. In suffering on the cross, Jesus, the ultimately innocent one, suffers with us! Or as Wiesel says "Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..."

What is even better news, is that Christ does not just sympathise with our suffering, He transforms it. The Christian faith does not deny, ignore, or try to go around the issue of suffering. Instead, through the cross, we can conquer through it! In Christ's resurrection, death itself died. We, like Jesus, will still have to endure unfair suffering, the pain of that mother is real. Her hate of death is shared with God's hate of death. However, if we put our trust in Him, we can suffer with hope, we can mourn with hope, we can be a people of hope. 

We can stand belligerently against the pain, suffering, and even death that touches our lives. We can stand against it because one day we will share in Christ's resurrection and ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

However, until that one fine day, we have an awesome privilege and responsibility. The privilege and responsibility of continuing Christ's ministry here on earth. Continuing it by hurting with those who hurt, and celebrating with those who are celebrating. All as a beautiful prelude to when Our Risen Lord returns and we can come into full relationship with Him as He will bring to completion what we have started in His name. Bring to completion the "making everything new!”

How can we 'make all things new' in our lives today?

A Lesson From William Isaac

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal


I love my son. When he is happy I am happy when he is sad I am sad. Such is life as a parent.


Despite the love Britt and I have for William Isaac we are very disappointed in his decision that sleeping is for sissies. We are even more disappointed that he doesn't seem to understand that his mother and I are BIG sissies!


A few weeks ago, Billy invited me to a party at his crib at 3:00 am via screaming at the top of his lungs. When I got there I tried to calm him without picking him up but that was not working. So, I gathered up the little guy in my arms and started walking the carpets.


After pacing his room for about half an hour I decided to walk around the house. At this point I realized that Billy was in pain and his part plans had turned into a nightmare for him.


My heart broke as I realized that my baby boy was in pain, probably from his re-flux. It broke because of his pain and the realization of my callousness This entire time I had feeling nothing but frustration toward my son. So I did the only thing I know to do when I screw up, I prayed.


I prayed for forgiveness of my callousness and that, somehow, my 4 month old son would realize that what he is going through is not the end of the world, that this too shall pass.


As I finished my prayer I opened my eyes and looked out of the window of our living room. As I pondered the beauty of the moonlight it happened. The Lord gave me a Holy Head slap! I could almost hear Him say, "That's what I have been trying to teach you!" What you are going through with work, raising Billy, and everything are only light and momentary troubles!" Feeling like more of a baby than my 4 month old, I began to weep.


As we go throughout our days, I pray that we all try to gain an eternal perspective on our own "light and momentary troubles." Not negating the pain but realizing that our Joy is not dependent on outside circumstances but who we are in Christ. This eternal perspective helps us to understand that we are those "jars of clay" that Paul talks about. Even though we may be fallible, fragile, and prone to weakness the Lord still trusts us to carry His message. Perhaps He uses us broken people "to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."


So, if you are feeling "hard pressed on every side" know that the Holy Spirit can give you the strength to not be crushed. If you are at a cross roads and perplexed, do not despair, the God who created the universe can guide you. If you are feeling persecuted, we are not abandoned. We do not serve a God who is distant form our sufferings but suffers with us, as Jesus did on the cross. And even if you have been struck down, you will never be destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:7-9). As Jesus suffers with us on the cross we can share in His victory because the same Holy Spirit that Raised Him from the grave can live within you and me. He can live within us so that nothing can stop us from living out His love in our lives. Not flat tires, bad traffic, sleepless nights from crib parties at 3:00 am, or even death itself!


How is the Lord overcoming your light and momentary troubles?