Go DEEEPER!

Throughout the month of October, we will be hearing from various members of the church about how they are going deeeper in their faith. For those of you who were not at worship on Sunday,  going DEEEPER is about how we live our faith to engage with new people, be a place of encouragement, and expect God to work through us.  

On Sunday, we shared about how witnessing to our faith is an important part of engaging with new people.  We want to be a church that embraces the diversity in our community and express God's love for all people.  But the only way we can do that is through you!  Your witness makes a difference by being a word of encouragement to others about who God is and how God is at work in our lives.  The best way we can do this is by knowing our faith story and being able to express how God is at work in our lives. 

Listen to the Aliyah Taylor's faith story she shares about her witness in high school based on our Scripture for the week of Romans 1: 8-17.    


My Faith Story:
Living in the hands of God in School
"Through the years my faith has been a large part of what kept me grounded in my school life as well as at home. In the scripture Paul tells God about his longing to visit the Christians in Rome, but inevitably leaves it in the hands of God. Like Paul, I try my hardest to let God lead me through school as much as He possibly can. Through all of the school work, AP courses, homework, etc. my mind begins to fill with many important subjects and get distracted. Sadly, through all of these distractions my faith tends to slide to the back of my mind as the hustle and bustle of junior year wears me down. 

Somehow, through all of this, God seems to find Himself right where He should be, in the forefront of my mind. Even though my mind gets distracted by other things, God continues to guide me through this hectic journey of high school. Without my faith, I wouldn't be as strong as I am today.   During testing in school, making good grades, juggling extracurricular activities, my praying and truly listening to the word of God is what helps me get through the struggle of high school. Within high school there are so many people around you that try to steer you from your faith or even just in the wrong direction. But through the help of this church and my family I stay right where I should be. In the hands of God. 
- Aliyah Taylor

How will you Go DEEEPER this week?

• I will engage my faith story by writing it down, so I can express God's love more deeply in my life.

• I will share my faith story with someone I know to encourage them to grow in love of God.

• I will expect God to be at work in me, by inviting someone that I meet this week to church.

Exiting from the ramp, I see him up ahead. Standing at the stoplight with a cardboard sign. 
He is dirty and frail, and has seen better days. 
Hair unkept and skin like leather. 
The light turns green and cars move forward. 
Then yellow...then red. 
Stop, next to him. 
Not a dime in my wallet, nothing to give, I avoid his stare. 
Looking ahead, not to the side.
Eyes forward, face stoic, focus on the task ahead. 
Get there on time.
A moment to be vulnerable, to roll down the window. 
To ask: "how are you today?"
Too embarrassed, I pretend to be distracted by my thoughts. 
Knowing in my peripheral, I see him 
Knowing in his peripheral, he sees me. 
The light turns green, and off we go. 
Forgotten for another day.


Those are the moments I am ashamed to admit to you.  These are the times, I am less than Christian. In that moment, I avoid awareness of what it means to be faithful. 
For, to be Christian is to see. 
To notice those around you and pay attention to who they are.  To recognize every person is a child of God, deserving to be spoken to, deserving to be acknowledged. Instead, I avoid eye contact, too embarrassed to explain I had nothing to offer but a smile. 

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is a difficult one to hear, because all of us at some time or another have not paid attention to the plight of the poor and needy around us.  We may have seen it with our eyes, but have we seen it with our hearts?  Have we asked what it is like to be in their shoes? Have we wondered what is going through their head?  Have we imagined that their path to becoming who they are today could have easily been my journey too?   Do we see and feel enough to move us to action?   

Everyday, the rich man sees Lazarus at the gate and ignores him.  He sees his hunger and his illness and turns a blind eye.  His heart is hardened to Lazarus' pain.  Until the rich man ends up in an eternal place of deep anguish himself.  Then he starts to see what this kind of pain is about. 

What will it take for us to see and respond to the pain around us?  How would we change if we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable and put ourselves in another's shoes. Before we make assumptions based on our preconcieved notions, could we roll down the window and ask "how are you today?"  Would we be courageous enough to really look at the life of the "poor" and see them for who they really are: a precious child of God?
 
God be with us all,
Pastor Alex

​When I was in junior high school I took a pottery class.  It was great fun cutting and molding the clay, but once I put my clay on the spinning wheel, I realized how much more difficult this task would be than it looked.  As the clay spun on the pottery wheel it was slimy and slippery and it moved so much that every time I thought I had the shape just right, it would twist just a tiny bit and the whole thing would topple.  This is how I knew that the expert hand at the potters wheel was one that required patience, diligence and determination. Not to mention, lots of hours of experience.  As you can imagine, my final pot was something that only a mother could have loved.  Though lob-sided and bumpy, it came to the point in the class where I had run out of time to finish the project.  It was fired in the hot kiln and remained a visual of how imperfect my efforts had been.  

As we hear the story of the potters wheel this day, we are are given an image of which we are reminded of God's constant creative work in us. Like the potter, God is constantly at work in us, molding, reshaping, gently guiding with patient, gentle hands as our world spins round and round. The creativity of God, coupled with the diligence to not give up on us even with all of our lob-sidedness and bumps, is a testament to God's love and redemption.   In our passage this week, Jeremiah sees that the clay on the potter's wheel is spoiled, and the potter must "rework it, as it seems good to him."  The potterdoesn't give up on the clay, throw it in the trash and start over with a different lump. No, the potter patiently keeps working out all of the faults of the clay until it is made good. 

What a beautiful image to be reminded of how God never gives up on us!  The creator who began us will bring to fruition what has been started.  God will keep recreating in us for thegood.  That redeeming power of God is constant in our lives, for God is the potter and we are the clay. 

And yet there are times where we allow ourselves to not remain pliable to God's creative work. There are times where due to hardship, fear or a desire to control our lives we harden our hearts to God's creative, redemptive work.  And when we have allowed ourselves to be burned and hardened in those kiln moments of life,  it is difficult for God to do redemptive work. 

So let us remain pliable, open to the creative work of God.  So that even with all of our faults, we can be assured that God's grace-filled work will always be shaping our lives!


Pastor Alex

​I must have had a strange look on my face.  I was just taking a quick trip to the grocery store, but I was hurried and distracted.  I rushed in and took a quick glance around to get my bearings before I darted off to the section of the store that I needed.  

"Are you lost?" he asked me.  "May I help you find something?"

"Oh, no, um, thanks," I stammered, a bit taken off guard.  "I'm just in a hurry."

And off I went. 

Obviously the look on my face must have given him the wrong impression.  I wasn't lost, I knew pretty much what I was looking for.  Right? 

Sure, it had been one of those weeks where schedules were crammed and my mind was racing.  I had been less than patient with the kids and frustrated with how some things just weren't working out the way I wanted them to go.  I hadn't been focused in my devotional time lately and the prayer life, was well, rote.  

You know how it is.  Lately, it was just hard to keep perspective.  It isn't easy being a Christian nowadays with all of these distractions and demands on time and energy.  But I wouldn't say I was lost...

This week in worship we hear the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin.  They are two parables Jesus tells to the Pharisees when they are feeling bitter that Jesus is spending so much time eating with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus is spending precious time with those who are considered unrighteous.  The religious righteous wonder, "What about us, why won't he spend time with us?  That's not fair!  We're the ones doing everything right and following the ways of the law, not THOSE heathens!"  

As a result, Jesus brings to the Pharisees attention that they, the righteous, are lost.  For the Pharisees can not see how judgmental they have become, and he calls them to repentance. So apparently those that call themselves righteous can get lost too.  Even when we are following the rules and going through all the motions of faith, we can still get lost.

We can get lost when our own cries of self pity deafen us to the cries of the needy.  We can get lost when our own sense of importance in tasks and jobs becomes our predominant identity. We can get lost when we don't value another person's ideas because they don't match our own goals.  We can get lost when our devotional time becomes routine and our praise is out of obligation rather than true joy of the Lord. 

...As I was leaving the store holding my bags of purchases, I met the same gentleman at the door.  I was grateful for what his simple question had brought to my attention.  

"Did you find what you were looking for?" he asked kindly.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I did.  Thank you."

This Sunday, let us give thanks to the God who always seeks to find us, 

Pastor Alex

​I recently came home to discover potato chip crumbs all over my apartment - on the floor, in the carpet, in my daughter's closet... You get the picture. It seems the babysitter had given Olivia a bag of chips. I'm not super strict, but one thing we do in our house is eat at the table. I have found it's a good rule when you have a 3-year old.

What are some of the rules you have at your house? Or some of the rules your parents had when you were growing up? We usually have rules to provide a sense of order and safety within the home. Brene Brown, a social work researcher at the University of Houston, believes that the home is one of the most intimate places we have in our lives and the people who live with you are the people who know you the best because they see you every day at your greatest and your worst. Because of this intimate knowledge, she believes those you live with have the most power to either lift you up or tear you down.

God knows where we live and knows us at our worst and our best. For some, this is a great comfort, but for others it is a very scary thing. In our text for this week, the Psalmist reminds us that God knows us better than anyone. God formed us in our mother's wombs. God knows what we are going to say before we even say it. That's pretty scary to me, especially when I speak out of anger or without giving much thought to my words.

Our lectionary text in verse 18 concludes with "I come to the end - I am still with you." God is with us through the cycle of life, good and bad, ups and downs. Is this a comfort for you or something scary? Is it both?

I believe the ultimate goal of knowing that God is intimately involved in our very existence, that our physical needs and our material world is at the center of divine concern, is as Jesus revealed - God embraces all of life in all its forms, even at the risk of being rejected because God at God's very core is relational. We are invited to enter into relationship with this God, with all its inherent risks and possibilities, scary or comforting, and be transformed.

See you on Sunday.

Peace of Christ to you, 

Gary

 

One of places of deepest anxiety for me at the beginning of school every year was the lunch table. When I went to sixth grade, I knew absolutely no one in my school so the lunch table was the dreaded daily decision: would anyone sit with me? 
I would look at all of the other kids who had been friends since kindergarten, and wish I could be at their table.  They seemed to have so much fun laughing and joking - they were so comfortable with each other.  They were those people who seemed to have it all together - the looks, the clothes, the athletics - they were the "exalted."
 
Likely you had some of the "exalted" in your school experience.  They might have been the jocks or the cheerleaders or the student council, but they always seemed to be first in everything, whether winning first place, or first lieutenant on the drill team or captain of the football team.  The exalted seemed to be the first picked or selected or honored.   The lunch table revolved around those who were exalted too.
 
This Sunday, we will see an image of a much different lunch table.  Jesus tells a parable of a table in which the exalted will be humbled and the humbled will be exalted.  In this situation, those who have always been honored, give up their spots to those who have never felt that way or had that experience.  Those who are normally laughed at or bullied or feel invisible everyday, are recognized, assured and made to feel important.  That lunch table is the image of a banquet in the kingdom of God.
 
This week, many children start the school year at a new lunch table with all new faces.  This week, many children will be laughed at, bullied, or feel invisible at lunch tables around our city.  This week, many children will be anxious around their school lunch tables hoping to make just one new friend.
 
Please take a moment today to pray for those children, that somehow, those lunch tables will look less like the school cafeteria and more like a banquet in the kingdom of God.
 
Peace to you and yours, 
 
Alex

This week, I am on vacation with my family in Utopia, Texas.  Thanks to a kind offering by a family in our church, we are spending the week in their vacation home surrounded by the beauty of God's creation.  With a name like Utopia, you know it must be a great place!
Yesterday, we were rafting down the river and in the peace and tranquility of those moments, I was in awe of the beauty around me.  From the Spanish moss dangling from the trees, to the crystal clear water where minnows swam, to the rocks formed over thousands of years, it seemed every aspect was perfectly orchestrated.

We hear these words from the book of Jeremiah 1:5 this week "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you."  The mystery of God is never more apparent than when we stop to admire God's beauty in creation, and when we pause to consider the intricacy of how this pattern works. How is it possible for God to know us so intimately and also for nature to evolve over thousands of years?  It is a comfort and an assurance that God knows us intimately and intricately.  It is beyond our understanding to consider how the universe continues to develop.  What a blessing that the same God allows the minnows to grow into fish that feed us, the moss to shade us and the water to quench our thirst.  How God provides for us as a precious creation, makes us even more mindful of how we are responsible to care for this earth as God's handiwork. 

I hope this week you too might take a moment to give thanks that the God who knows you intimately is also the One who gives us a world to awe us.

Enjoy the view of God's blessings this week,
Alexandra