Hearing the Music

Faithfully Working

Over the past few years Christ Church has been intentionally exploring its role in equipping and mobilizing followers of Jesus to engage their vocation. This includes Adult Institute classes focused around work and calling, a podcast that interviewed members about their vocation during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as various sermons, discussions and events focused around a flourishing society. We’ve been exploring servanthood, responsibility, courage and humility. These four words help prepare God’s people for a life of wise vocational stewardship. It’s our expressed intent to cultivate not only a healthy vocabulary but to also connect our deep ingrained sense of righteousness to these character traits that express faithful vocational stewardship. In short Christ Church wants to fill her people with wise, Christ-centered principles of vocation, calling and what it means to honor God in all aspects of our lives. So what are we doing about this? Today we have re-launched Faithfully Working Lunch, one of our Faithfully Working ministry offerings. As recent recipients of the inVocation grant from Hope College and the Lily Foundation, our aim is to create spaces for discussion and shared focus for growth. Over the next 18 months we will seek to foster a deeper understanding of how we can offer service through our various callings, engage in the flourishing of our communities and disciple one another through our gifts, passions and opportunities.

The last 14 months have turned a lot of how we view work on it’s head. Unemployment became real for many who never thought it would. The work from home model became the norm, making the dining room table not only the place you eat or read to your kids, but also the place where you write draft proposals, answer emails and “clock-in” for the days work. This has produced more stress and anxiety, the constant connection to our employers with a very real sense of the job is never done. There is a sense of low level anxiety that has permeated every aspect of our lives. It doesn’t only exist in the job world, but in all levels of work. Raising kids, volunteering at church, serving on a school board, caring for our elderly parents, taking care of the many things we have acquired. Work surrounds our lives, we toil as a part of the curse found in Genesis 2 and 3. As churches continue to close (6,000-10,000 per year) the secular world has recognized the need for human touch, something that transcends the difficulty of life, and addresses the spiritual and religious needs of employees. No matter what religious need that is.

It seems pertinent to pursue these issues as Jesus followers. We are seeking the welfare of the city (Jeremiah 29:7) while also recognizing that it’s through Jesus that the weary find rest (Matt 11:28-30) and the city rejoices because of the work of the righteous (Prov. 11:10). Through our pursuit of Jesus in every aspect of our life together, including vocation, we desire to humbly follow the Lord in this leading. By seeking first the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33) and living it out today through our various gifts, passions and opportunities, we journey together to seek Jesus through our vocation, pursue justice and shalom for our neighborhoods and city by re-orienting our heart to the gospel message.

Stay tuned to our podcast to catch each edition of Faithfully Working over the next 18-months. We are excited to journey together.

You may have recognized the progress that is happening at Christ Church. Our building project continues and we anticipate full use of our new space later this summer. As we contemplated the use of this space we puzzled over an appropriate name. Words matter. They mean things, and impact the way you and I choose to engage with, in this case, a space in the house of God we steward. After much prayer, thought and discussion, the building committee has landed on Atrium. Here are the Oxford definitions of Atrium;

ARCHITECTURE

• an open-roofed entrance hall or central court in an ancient Roman house.
• a central hall or court in a modern building, with rooms or galleries opening off it, often glass-covered.

ANATOMY

• each of the two upper cavities of the heart from which blood is passed to the ventricles. The right atrium receives deoxygenated blood from the veins of the body; the left atrium receives oxygenated blood from the pulmonary vein.

“The sanctuary and this new open high ceiling space, are spaces where learning and teaching are at the ‘Heart’ of our worship. Atrium also describes a sense of natural light and outdoor environment brought into our worship space.”

We are excited about the possibilities that await the Atrium. Events like Faithfully Working Lunch will find a future home in this space. There will be much laughter, discussion, mourning, beauty and care that happens within that space. May God be glorified as we faithfully follow Him.

Photo by Standsome Worklifestyle on Unsplash

Joyful Awareness

Where do you derive joy from? As the pandemic continues, many of us have been zapped of joy to one degree or another. The "uprootification" (yes, I made that word up!) of different aspects in our lives over the past year can do this - figuring how to work from home, second guessing a kid's runny nose and wondering if they go to school that day or not, difficult relationships with loved ones, and not to mention another Zoom call. The complexity that has been added to our lives can take the joy out of life. Trust me, I know this feeling. Even as the vaccine roles out, the weather warms up, and we seemingly have a better handle on our current situation we still have to navigate complex situations and answers to difficult questions in our daily tasks. This may leave us searching for joy.

I mentioned last Sunday that John 15 is one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible. It's rich with the grace and goodness of the Father, the love and life of Jesus, and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Take verse 11, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." This is a powerful idea. Through our abiding in Jesus, he will put his joy in us. Where does Jesus' joy come from? It is from the Father, as Jesus says, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love...I have kept the Father's commandments and abide in His love" (vs. 9, 10b). An aspect of our union with Christ is we experience joy by remembering our relationship to him. Just as Jesus remembered his relationship to the Father, bringing about obedience, love and joy, we too may contemplate our relationship with Jesus, which brings about our faith, obedience, love and joy. One author puts it this way, "Faith means living daily in the joyful awareness that Christ lives in us" (Anthony Hoekema, Saved by Grace, 1994). Our joy comes from Christ and from remembering that he lives in us.

Christian, as you seek joy today, this weekend, and in the coming weeks remember that our joy will be full in Christ. This means we surround ourselves with things that stir our affections for Christ. For me, a walk outside away from noise will stir my affections for Christ. A good story will stir my affections for Christ. A beautiful piece of design or art, or a conversation with a good friend, these things stir my affections for Christ and lead me to the joy I find in him. When we take time to contemplate this idea and rest in the goodness of Jesus, our saving King, we are filled with a joy the likes of which are unfound in our world.

_{Photo by Jessica Fadel on Unsplash}

Truths for 2021

One thing continues to ring true as we enter the new year and inch our way along: Jesus is King! Many other “things” ring true as well - the sun is rare in the winter in West Michigan (it's shining as I write this, hallelujah!), snow is cold, politics are messy, 2020 was hard (and unwelcome in many respects), people are suffering, and church should be a safe place. That last one is a difficult truth to write. For many of us we do experience church as a safe place; a place where we can be vulnerable before God, friends and our community. A place we can turn to in times of need or struggle; a community to help us process and pray through situations. However, there are many people who don’t see church as a safe place. Victims of abuse, whether physical, emotional, spiritual or the like, can experience that abuse from within the church community and see church as unsafe. Recently a fellow member of Christ Church on a "healing journey” wrote the following letter that sheds light on some of this. It begins with a reminder from the Bible:

"Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known."          _{Luke 12:2}

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 1 in 3 women experience sexual violence during her lifetime and nearly 1 in 4 men experience sexual violence during his lifetime. Recent investigations within Southern Baptist churches confirm sexual abuse to be as much of a problem within evangelical churches as it is in the rest of the country. When abuse occurs, the victims tend to wrestle with questions about God, such as: "does God care?" or "why doesn’t He do something?". Rachel Denhollander, a lawyer, former gymnast, and sexual assault survivor, expresses in her book "What is a Girl Worth?" that sexual abuse damages the victims forever. She shares, “I lived with the scars too, and I was wrestling with the reality that full healing doesn’t ever come" (pg. 226-227). While this may be true on this earth we have hope in a God who will heal all. Psalm 147:3 assures us:

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Along with this, the Bible also tells us, “The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble” (Psalm 9:9). As a church we must strive to be a place of safety and healing for those who are hurting. We must seek to help the broken in mind, body, and spirit. May God give us wisdom and compassion as we humbly work in this ministry.

Love,
A fellow member of Christ Church on a healing journey

There are two aspects of this letter I hang on to. First, that “as a church, we must strive to be a place of safety and healing for those who are hurting.” Amen. The statistics are daunting, concerning and humbling. The results of investigations in the SBC and other denominations shed more light on this issue. Part of Jesus’ mission is to bring healing to the sick and needy. We are starting a new sermon series on Sunday titled “I Am”, looking at the 'I Am' statements made by Jesus in the gospel of John. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the Way, Truth and Life, the Resurrection and Life. Jesus is the King who has come and who knows His people's hurts, habits and hang-ups and enters into them. We must seek to trust wholly in Jesus in all circumstances.

The second aspect I hang onto is that our wisdom and compassion in this area must come from God, for He is the one who heals. It doesn't come from our own wisdom or from the world. The healing we provide is only a shadow of what God offers through a relationship in Jesus. As we seek God and as the Holy Spirit moves we will be a safe place for those who are hurting. 

Join me in praying for the hurting in our community who experience abuse. Let us pray that God would make Christ Church a safe place in 2021 and beyond.

_{Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash}