Categories
Forward Look

Kitchen committee at work

Back to the drawing board sometimes brings excellent results.  That was the unanimous feeling of the kitchen committee as they modified their plan for remodeling work in our church kitchen.   The new blueprint calls for more room on the right side.   It still plans for a double-width doorway and eventually several new appliances.   In order to accommodate the squaring of the room, the outside hallway would have to be straightened, involving some minor wall moving.  The committee will be discussing their plans with the Christian Education Team leader and the LBA in the coming week.   If plans continue to develop and find favor, the evolving ideas could eventually be on the agenda at the May annual church conference.  For more info, talk to committee chair, Cindy Centner.

Categories
Church Leadership

Give away responsibilities and grow others

It’s the middle of Easter Sunday morning celebration program; I’m waiting in the side room for the next vocal number as I am singing in the ensemble.   My assistant is leading the service.  An usher hurries over to tell me that a regular attendee has just come in crying because her mother has been taken by her father to the hospital that morning because of illness.    What should I do; should I desert the choir group to go pray in the balcony where she is sitting and hope I get back in time?   Should I stop things so I can pray aloud?   No!  It is a perfect opportunity to give away ministry.   I quickly instruct the usher to ask our assistant pastor’s wife to go and pray with the distraught person, which she did, taking a prayer partner with her.   I thanked her after service.

When we planned the service,  I was wondering if I should try to start the final song even though I was to play  brass for it.   I’m sorry to say, I have done that kind of one-man-show thing before.   No!  It is another opportunity for someone else to lead.  I asked our assistant worship leader to step up and lead it so I could focus on playing.

In addition, rather than try to juggle too many hats, as I have often done, I turned over Scripture readings, offerings, announcements, and morning prayer to my very capable and trained assistant.   Things went more smoothly; transition time was saved; and he was up front more to be visible to younger families attending.   I was able to do a better job of using my musical gifts.   Win! Win!

Often leaders hinder the development of leaders under them and rob the next generation of ministry because they insist on hogging the limelight and doing every part that comes to them.   How much better if they would empower others to minister and show leaders under them that their leader believes in them.   As John C. Maxwell put it in a little book called  The Right to Lead, “Give your power away.   One of the ironies of leadership is that you become a better leader by sharing whatever power you have, not by saving it all for yourself.”  It is a higher success to involve others than to do the same things all yourself.   And by developing others, the kingdom’s capacity for ministry is greatly expanded.

Categories
Journal Joy Notes

Easter Joy

Easter Joy

My heart is very joyful this Easter season.   I suppose the beautiful warm spring weather we’ve been having helps.  It has brought out the crocus and daffodils en masse.   April is my favorite month anyway, I think.   

But I am very aware this year that it is not just annual spring time euphoria that I feel.   It is a response in me first to the story of Jesus’ resurrection itself.  As I studied for the second of the Easter morning messages and looked at the response of the disciples to the Good News that Jesus was alive, I noted their amazement, their joy and their adoring worship (see Apr. 4 10 a.m. sermon)  and I began to respond in those ways myself.   The homiletics teachers always said that God has to work on the preacher first if there is going to be any chance that the message will be received by the congregation.   I sensed that happening. 

JoAnne's watercolor for our family Easter card

 

I asked the congregation Easter morning, “What blessings have come to you from Jesus that bring you joy?   I want to answer that for myself.   I owe so much to Jesus.   Here’s a few ideas that came to me.  I hope it prods your thinking too. 

  • Because of his grace I do not have to be burdened with guilt for sins.   He has forgiven me. 
  • Because of his love I know I am adopted into God’s family.  
  • His Word teaches me humility, kindness, faithfulness and other attitudes and responses that help me in relationships.   I continue to learn to love and understand others as I learn of God’s love for me. 
  • Because of Jesus’ resurrection, I have the hope of seeing deceased loved ones again who are also “in Christ” (1 Thess. 4:17, 18).  
  • Because the power of the resurrection is at work in our daily lives, I am sure that God is at work (Rom. 8:28; John 5:17) even when I cannot sense it.  
  • Because in his resurrection, Jesus has shown himself to be the ultimate victor, I know that by trusting in him I can be victorious over temptations (1 Cor. 10:13; 2 Cor. 2:14).   When I slip, it’s because I did not avail myself of God’s strength, or stubbornly did it my way anyway.    I could have been victorious.  
  • Because of God’s power at work in me, I am expectant, hopeful and optimistic.  
  • And in my case, because this resurrection hope has been defining our family for at least three generations on both sides, it has the added strength of family heritage, Christian traditions, and multi-generations of marital health.   This kind of heritage gives me strength too.  

So when I think of why I should be joyful at Easter, I am overwhelmed with emotion as I begin to contemplate it. To celebrate such gifts is to be humbled by them.  Joy, Joy, Joy!

Categories
Journal Who Am I

Family Ties Are a Blessing

Celebrating Easter with family

Family Ties are a Blessing

For us, Easter has always been a great time to affirm family ties.  I guess there is something about focusing on the center of our faith together that brings us closer to those we love too. 

 A week or so ago we made a pre-Easter visit to Bath, NY, and had lunch with JoAnne’s Dad and his wife Lucille and her brothers Joe and Mark.   This weekend we really enjoyed having our son-in-law Mark and our daughter, Keely, visiting us from Hartford, Connecticut.   It was also son-in-law Mark’s birthday weekend so we took time to celebrate even amid the busyness of a parish at Easter time–such good food – JoAnne’s turkey dinner on Friday; Mark’s favorite Syracuse restaurant, Dominick’s, on Saturday; and ham and scalloped potatoes with lemon pie for Easter dinner.   Then Easter evening I talked with my Mom for over an hour on the phone.   My occasional long phone conversations with Mom have an extended history going back to late night conversations on the hall phone when I was a frosh at U of R decades ago.   Today it is encouraging to chat with her as she is a great fan of my ministry.   Also, as we talk, I can catch up on all the family news.   Her memory for extended family details is better than mine.   Also Easter evening, Kim O. stopped over to watch a movie with JoAnne, while I took a walk in the neighborhood and read the paper, and talked with Mom.  

 Family ties are such a blessing.

Categories
Forward Look Journal

Easter music will be celebrative

Just finished vocal ensemble practice a bit ago for Easter service next Sunday.  One song is a very upbeat black gospel number with the theme “Hosanna”.   The other is also energetic and I have been singing it for days already.  It’s called, “We are celebrating Resurrection Day.”  I always say that one of the great benefits of being in church choirs or vocal groups is that the music also fills your week.  You wake up singing it in your mind.    The words sail through your thoughts in the middle of the day.  It is uplifting.   

Our children will be literally setting our Easter celebration in motion with a choreographed number under Eva’s direction, with the assistance of her niece, Alli.   It will be cool.   We’re keeping the whole platform clear to make room for them. 

I’m also looking forward to playing a brass duet with Nick Hanggi in the Sonshine service.   We will be accompanying some of the hymns in both services too.   Richard Filmer is planning to accompany one hymn in Celebration Service with the bell tree.   Musical highlights add so much to our Easter Day.

Categories
Joy Notes

Early crocus bring joy

Here’s my new desktop wall-paper for springtime.  Love that Bible promise, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease”(Ge 8:22 NIV).

So we are encouraged, “Let us fear the Lord our  God, who gives autumn and spring rains in season,  who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest (Jer 5:24).” 

But just as important to me at this time of year as the outward signs of spring is the reminder that the springtime is symbol of God’s renewing presence in our lives.    “Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth  (Hos 6:3).”   That is always my prayer for myself and our congregation at Easter time.  May God water our hearts with his Spirit and his love and cause flowers of grace to spring up  amid the brown of winter’s debris as we press on to praise him!

Spring Fling

  A full busload of youth and adults headed off to Houghton last night (March 26) for Spring Fling.   Driver Mary Nugent piloted the new Minoa-Bridgeport-Kirkville (MBK) Senior Adult Transportation (SAT) ministry bus to the annual overnight adventure and back Saturday morning (Mar. 27).   It is available for such trips when it is not being used for its normal purpose, transporting seniors to doctors, shopping, etc.  

The early report this morning from the rather sleepy passengers was that they had a great time.  Rhett emerged holding the volleyball bracket chart, showing that our team had won the annual Spring Fling volleyball championship this year.  Congratulations crew!   We’ll be looking forward to more reports later.

Another great Bible site

I discovered another excellent place to go on the web to look up things in the Bible.  It’s called Biblegateway.com.   It has multiple available versions, ways to look things up, Bible reading plans, and a store for obtaining resources too.  I hope it is helpful.

Categories
Forward Look

Seder, what is it?

On the Thursday of Holy week, April 1, this year, at 7 p.m., we at Community Wesleyan will be sharing in a Christian version of the Jewish Seder.   Several have asked me what it is. 

Q.  What is a Seder?

A.  Seder means order.   The order being referred to is the order of the events at the Passover meal in Jewish households.   The meal was not simply a big family dinner.  Rather it was a highly symbolic meal completely structured for the purpose of teaching about and at the same time commemorating the Exodus.  

Q.  Why are we as Christians interested in a traditional Jewish dinner? 

A.  The reason is quite simple.    This Jewish celebration is millennia old.  God gave them instructions to begin celebrating it when they left Egypt (Ex. 12:14).    The reason we are so interested in it is that this was the commemorative meal that Jesus was leading when he instituted what we call communion or the Lord’s Supper.

Q.  What happens at a Christian Seder? 

A.   Our overall object will be to enrich our understanding of what Jesus was teaching at the Last Supper by understanding better how the sacrament of Communion is connected with the important parts of the Jewish meal during which Jesus instituted it.  For example, the Jewish Seder involves four cups of wine (we will use grape juice) at different times in the meal.  Each one symbolized a verb in God’s promise of redemption to the Jewish people (Ex. 6:6,7).   In between, are ceremonial foods also associated with the Jewish Exodus from Egypt.   The whole experience recalled that formative event in Jewish history.   However, it also very much symbolized the change that had taken place on that night, a change from slavery to freedom.    It also included elements that looked forward.   I’m sure you can see already several potential connections with what Jesus has done for us.

Q.  Will we be taking communion as a part of this service?

A.  Yes, we will.   It is a unique experience to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in the Seder setting in which it was originally instituted.  That is also why it is held on Thursday of Holy Week, traditionally the day on which we believe Jesus held the Last Supper.

 Q.  Will this be good for children to attend?

A.  Yes, I believe it will, especially children in grades 3-6 who I think will benefit greatly.  In fact, children will be asked to participate in some special ways.   Children may also taste the various ceremonial foods if their parents approve.   If they have accepted Christ for themselves, have a basic understanding of the sacrament, and if their parents approve they may partake of communion as well.

Categories
Forward Look

50th Anniversary Committee filling subcommittees

At their meeting Tuesday evening, the 50th Anniversary committee continued to lay the groundwork for our church’s 50th anniversary celebration.   They also celebrated completion of recent   50 4 50 ministries; such as Eric’s and Magda’s missions trip and the Children’s Great Adventure weekend.   

One of the key things currently happening is filling sub-committees.  All committees are looking for interested volunteers who have the 50th on their hearts and would like to work to help our church’s celebration be meaningful.   The six sub committees are

50th Anniversary Teams
Team Area Team Leader(s)
Promotional JoAnne Jones
History Lori Hodge
50  4  50 Ministries Pastor Eric Paashaus
Prayer Larry Nemitz
Celebration Events Mike and Pat Lamb
Funds Planning (not yet named)

 If you would like to volunteer for any of these teams, please contact the team leader or Pastor Kelvin Jones.   The more folks who are involved, the greater the celebration!

The 50th committee also is working on ideas to increase calendar coordination in our church, something we feel will be needed for a successful celebration.  If you have ideas for this or would be interested in helping with it, please talk to Pastor Kelvin.