Hearing the Music

Together

The Grapes of Wrath is one of my favorite novels and I often think on Ma Joad and her relentless pursuit of keeping the “fambly” together through all of their challenges, despair and life moments. As we enter 2021, Ma Joad is coming to my mind again. I think we’d do well to catch some of her tenacity, and keep up the hard work of maintaining our unity as a church family during a global pandemic as we begin this new year....together.

There are many ways we’re fighting isolation as a church family: our Bible Studies, our C-Groups, Youth Groups, children’s Bible verse memory challenges, single women’s meetings and our varied worship offerings. Then there are the texts, phone calls and cards that are going out. But one thing is for sure--it takes work. It’s harder to connect. If you are struggling in any way, please let the church know.

One opportunity I’d like to highlight is our Together in Prayer group that meets via Zoom on Wednesdays 7-8pm. The group is mostly populated by those of us with older kids or empty-nesters, but all are welcome! It’s pretty simple--we say hello, we go to prayer, we chat a bit and say goodbye. Some people pray out loud, some stay on mute with the video off the whole time. But in that way we go before God in prayer together, and you are invited. Use this form to get the Zoom link.

Learning to pray is a journey for me. I’ve been surrounded by people who pray my whole life; I’ve had many, many people pray for me and my family (thanks be to God!!); I’ve talked about prayer and have prayed for others. But I’ve mostly felt guilty, inept and as if I wasn’t doing nearly enough. (rightly so!) I do not know the ways of Jesus going off by himself to spend time with his Father in the midst of his chaos. But I can testify that the Holy Spirit has been drawing me more and more into prayer, and teaching me to just do the next thing. And what I’ve seen is that He does work through our prayers. He likes to do that. Things start to move, and I can see it. It’s usually pretty quiet, but sometimes his presence is loud and without a doubt. (It feels to me as if we’re helping him in the kitchen--he could do his will much more easily without us, but he invites us in to use us and to train us.) I notice also that after a while I might change a longtime prayer over a situation to be more in line with God’s heart. This little app has been helpful to me: prayminder.com. It sends prayer prompts throughout the day. If you’re looking for something like that, I recommend it. Also remember our weekly prayer email. You can contact the church office to be added to the list to receive it if you don't already.

Noting big life events is an important way for the “fambly” to live together. We have had many entries for our family Bible this past year: births, adoptions and the dear ones who have died. Praying over these families would be a great way to live together with them.

This Sunday we celebrate Epiphany--the light of Christ going out to all the world. Pastor Addison will open Luke 2:10 with us; we’ll celebrate the Lord’s Supper; we’ll hear an Epiphany testimony. Let’s look for the ways God is drawing us together into himself through these things so we can move into 2021 and welcome others into our family. May we "fear not and behold the good news of great joy that is for all the people" this Epiphany Sunday. 

_{Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash}

Someone to Find Us

Happy Friday

For the record, "Happy Friday" is intentional each and every week. It is not that I am never unhappy or that I am simply happy it's Friday in some "workin for the weekend" sense; no, it is more a sense of choosing to be happy whatever the circumstances may be. Choosing to be happy, because I have a Savior.

I ran across a series of Advent reflections* that capture both the need our fallen circumstances create, but also captures beautifully the provision that Christmas promises: 

"We can never really understand Christmas unless we understand how much we need that baby in the manger. Advent is a time to think about the ways that life without God is an empty husk …

For Christians, and nobody else really has much business thinking about Advent or observing it, there is something else. If there is no Christmas, there is no Cross, no answer to the problems of sin, separation, failure and pain. Advent is a time to think about what life would be like if we didn’t have faith in a Redeemer, a Savior who was ready, willing and able to complete the broken arc of our lives, forgive what is past and walk with us step by step to help us build something better in the time that is left.

Advent is a time to remember that we need something more than what we can summon with our own resources to make our lives work. It’s a time to remember how lost we would be if Someone hadn’t come to find us."

Thank God that Someone did come to find us. This week we will dive into our longest section of Isaiah 40 by looking at verses 12-26. Here we get more detail about the God that we were encouraged to “Behold” last week. Once again, our confidence grows beyond our circumstances as we realize this God that we trust in is incomparable!

_{Photo by Jack B on Unsplash}

Campus Priests

I hope that this finds you well in the midst of some wild temperature swings accompanied by some hurricane force political happenings. As I was watching election results come in, get tabulated, get challenged, etc. I was reminded of the big job we have as the church of Christ to be priests to the world around us. Peter puts it this way “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9). As priests to this world, we are called to live sacrificially and to continually make intercession before the mercy seat of our God. We are called to live in such a way as to usher others into the kingdom.

One strategic way that we are partnering to execute this priesthood is through the ministry of Campus Outreach. This summer we welcomed Kenny Hayes and his family to West MI as they lay the groundwork for Campus Outreach in West MI. Addison and I had a good time talking to Kenny about this work in a podcast you can find here. Now that they are a couple of months into the strangest fall semester ever I thought it would be good to hear an update from Kenny on how things are going:

When the name of your game is building social networks, starting a new college ministry during times of social isolation has been anything but easy. But!! But, but, but… the Lord has been so faithful. Our prayer has been that God would put us in the right places at the right times. I’ll share an example: One afternoon my team and I decided to move our daily workout to the Intramural field. Guess who we met?? Every fraternity on campus! Unknown to us, there was a campus-wide event moved to this location because of COVID restrictions. This was a direct answer to prayer as one of our chief goals this year is to get our foot in the door among the fraternities and sororities. I befriended one president that day who soon got me involved with their house bible study! 

Got time for another story? Last week we made it a goal to knock on every fraternity door. After getting blown off a couple times, the president of one of the biggest fraternities did give us his cell. Jeff, my co-laborer, took him out for lunch which led to God opening the door to start a bible study at their fraternity house as well! Oh Lord, would the light of the gospel break forth amongst the darkest places of campus.

So, let us continue to intercede for and with Kenny and his team as they seek to usher these young people into closer walks with Jesus. This week Addison will be returning to Romans 14 to finish our look at the weak and the strong and the call to unity and welcome that God has placed on us. 

_{Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash}