My journey
I wrote the first version of this some years ago for our church newsletter at our first church. Each year as the lawns turn green again after the winter’s 
destruction, I am reminded of it. I thought it might be a word of encourgement to someone so I edited it and am publishing it. Here is the link:
http://learntobewise.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Parable-on-a-Winter-Brown-Lawn.pdf
I am thankful for each one who took time to honor Jesus by worshipping at Community Wesleyan in Kirkville this year. Attendance at Good Friday service and Easter Celebration service was up despite the fact that for nearly all of us, the pace of life accelerates on a holiday weekend. (The busy pace is one reason I’ve written less lately.) Yet somehow, if we do not take time to honor Jesus on Good Friday and Easter, when will we ever? He is supremely worthy of our praise.
This weekend held several highlights for me:
I have come to deeply appreciate the interactive passion narrative that we used again this year at the ecumenical service at St Paul’s Episcopal Church. Reading the narrative as characters in a play, helps put me more closely in touch with what really happened. In addition, sharing together in the service with other churches reminds me again that the family for whom Jesus died and who are responding to his call enfolds so many more than just my local church fellowship or even my denomination.
Easter has become a family time too in our culture and our family is no exception. It was a delight to have our daughter and son-in-law visit for a couple days and to have my brother-in-law, Joe, and father-in-law at Easter dinner.
Easter is a special time for children. Our church tries to make a home for children at God’s house. I enjoy greeting them at the Easter brunch and the Easter services. Some, especially the little girls, are all dressed up in Easter outfits and appreciate it if my wife or I notice. The boys like the food, as I think I would have as a boy.
Easter music is always a highlight. Special music adds a great deal; solos, instrumentals, handbell choir and holiday choir all help to mark the moment. I usually enjoy most the songs that the congregation seems to truly get involved in. This year was no exception. At our Good Friday service, there was a special moment when we sang the hymn, At Calvary. In Easter Celebration service, the praise team led with joy as everyone joined in on Celebrate Jesus. Then we sang the story of Jesus’ life via the new hymn, In Christ Alone; an inspiring time. One of the gifts of any worship service is when the music comes back to you and you find yourself singing it throughout the day or in the middle of the week. Then you know it was inspiring. (Singing in the choir will make that happen for sure.)
It always encourages me to see people in church at a holiday service that I or our church have reached out to in some way recently. Perhaps I stood by the side of someone in their family at a difficult time or performed a wedding or a funeral. Perhaps a child in the family attended preschool. People don’t realize how much it encourages pastors and church leaders when they attend.
On the flip side, I always wonder what people thought were their favorite moments in sermons. If they had to nominate a five minute segment from one of the three sermons I gave over this weekend to be put on U-Tube or inserted in an advertisement for our church, what five minutes would they choose? Pastors often have mixed feelings about their preaching and I guess this weekend is no exception. Some parts went better than I expected and others I would like to do over. I just trust that overall my thoughts were a blessing to many.
I remember as a student attending the mandatory chapel services at Houghton College. Since I was taking mostly Bible and related courses and was already active in church leadership in my home church, I considered chapel interesting. But I was quite aware that was not always the attitude of many of my peers. In fact, I sometimes felt a little sorry for chapel speakers who were asked to address an audience many of whom felt compelled to be there. A few of their listeners would even be shamelessly involved in other pursuits like reading, doing homework or chatting with friends.
I don’t remember it ever entering my mind that I might someday be one of those speakers. But that is what I had the privilege to be on April 13, 2011. Funny it is how perspectives completely change.
I have decided to change the message for April 10th. Here is the new chart.
What a joy it was to lead the special church conference this evening in the consideration of the 50th Anniversary Project. I had felt that there was a positive feeling about the various parts of the project but one always wonders if everyone is speaking up. There was good attendance at our meeting. This was gratifying since I had postponed it due to weather one time. But sometimes good attendance means sharp division of opinion. In this case, however, it quickly became obvious that good attendance signaled a strong excitement and a unanimous enthusiasm for the project.
I am experimenting with the ability of my Word Press Theme to include a custom menu. For the spring I have created a menu for the Winds of Refreshing emphasis. I will keep adding to it and probably leave it up for awhile after the emphasis is finished at church. I’m wondering if my readers are finding the custom menu feature helpful. Any feedback?
What says spring like counting the returning birds? Last weekend, I went for my neighborhood walk (about 1 mile each way) and counted robins. I was rejoicing to report a total of ten. The most I had seen before was one here or there. But today, things had definitely changed for the better. I counted 38 on the same walk! Yes! Gardening must be just around the corner!
Ever since we have set our hearts on seeking God together, it seems that I have been supernaturally aided in my searching.
1. God has helped me to have the heart to seek Him. I am learning that as we respond to God’s invitation, the Holy Spirit gives us greater thirst. Yesterday, for example, I had plenty to do. But I felt so hungry spiritually that I was almost compelled to spend more than double my normal devotional time in seeking God. I praised God, then prayed for things I thought of. When I was finished, God laid more things on my heart for intercession. I was experiencing the levels of prayer I had just read about in David Yonggi Cho’s book.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Jn 6:44 NIV
2. I keep running into more resources to encourage my search and help me to encourage others. Now, if I am thinking about something and run onto an article now and then, I can easily credit it to coincidence or just mental pre-occupation. But I have worked on sermons for many years and know about how often one normally runs into things that are relevant without doing specific research. In the last three weeks, such a high percentage of articles, devotionals, books I’m reading, DVD’s and music I’ve played have been directly helpful that it has amazed me. To give one example–last night, I picked up a worship video that has been on my desk for months. I thought it might be relevant to the sermon. I discovered quickly that it was more relevant to last week’s sermon so I could have stopped watching and saved time. But I kept watching for the personal inspiration just when I needed it. It was awesome–a true worship generator. I don’t think it added material for the message this week, but it sure helped fill the preacher’s heart.
And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. 1 Ch 28:9 NIV
Stay tuned, I have a feeling this adventure is only begun!
Sometimes people ask a pastor for a good charity to give to in a crisis such as the one in Japan. I sent a donation today to World Vision, an excellent Christian charity I have known about for many years that is already at work in Japan. You can see a video report of what they are doing by checkng this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_SooP8pVqs
Here are two sections by E. Stanley Jones from a daily devotional book I highly recommend. I have followed them with my own conclusion.
Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior (Isaiah 45:15 NRSV).
Here is the hidden God, like the hidden thought…we cannot know what he is like unless he communicates himself through a word.
If you say, “I can know God in my heart intuitively and immediately, without the mediation of a word,” then the answer is: “But your ‘heart’ then becomes the medium of communication and knowing the heart as you do with its sin and crosscurrents and cross-conceptions you know it is a very unsafe medium for the revelation of God.”
God must reveal himself.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1).
Here is the hidden God and he expresses himself through the Word…
Jesus is called the Word because the word is the expression of the hidden thought. Unless I put my thought into words you cannot understand it. Here is God; we sense his presence, but he is Spirit, hence hidden. We want to know what he is like—not in omnipotence, nor in omniscience, nor in omnipresence; a revelation of these would do little or no good, but we would know his character, for what he is like in character, we, his children, must be. So the Hidden Thought—God—becomes the Revealed Word—Christ. (365 Days with E. Stanley Jones, Mary Ruth Howes, editor, Dimensions for Living Nashville, 2000, pp. 74,75)
No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known (John 1:18 NIV).
I was impressed as I read these that spending time in God’s Word, accompanied by a prayer that the Holy Spirit would teach us, is an essential part of seeking God. Christians do not meditate with empty minds, but with thoughts shaped by God’s Word. The still-small inner voice of the Holy Spirit most often uses the written revelation, the record of Jesus’ words and presence, to guide us and speak to us.
What an incentive to our discipline to seek God. The situation turns out to be so simple—too simple. Unless we spend time with God in God’s Word and in prayer, we will never really know God. We would prefer a fast-food shortcut, a spoon-fed alternative, an easier way but there are none. But the truly good news is that God desires that we discover him! And he has provided a means for us to begin.
Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near (Isa 55:6 NIV).