The Latest Word
Here’s a little bite of what you’ll hear at Crossroads from week to week:
Reunions
No it is not going to be a questionable weekend! What it is will be a weekend of special surprise guests.
It just so happens that this weekend we have a convergence of old friends and new friends in the area who will be coming in to join us. The band will take a bluesy turn and the message will lean toward southern rock. Another friend will get back on the right foot this Sunday.
One of the great things about the Christian life is the reunions. I am looking forward to a heavenly reunion someday with people I love and who have led me toward Jesus. I enjoy the annual family reunions – one is coming up for my family on Saturday. I really enjoy the Sunday morning family reunions each week, watching people catch up and share their lives together. Every week it is different and every week special. There are times like this Sunday when I know the group is going to be filled with some of my favorite people that I don’t get to see all of the time that I really get excited.
Our life in Christ leads us to reunions – a re-union with our God, erasing the damage done by the fall of mankind – a re-union with people and a rebuilding of relationships on the foundation of our faith and a re-union within ourselves, between who we are and who God formed us to be.
Confused? Don’t be. The answers are at Crossroads – 9:15 a.m. Sunday. Hope to see you there.
Pastor Jim
A Peculiar People
Some people know I affectionately refer to our church as the “Land of Misfit Toys – People Edition”, referencing one of my favorite holiday shows. I wonder often about the amazing group of people that God has put together into our church family. One of my favorite things is being part of people getting to know each other, in fact it is at the center of our church motto – Love God, Love our Neighbor, Serve Humanity.
If you are committed to loving someone you get to know them, you become focused on who they are and what they like and dislike rather than what are your own interests. This is the heart of any relationship, with God, with our children, spouse, boss, parents, friends – across the board.
Yesterday I had two of those “ah-ha” moments where I saw people living what we claim to be about. Both were moments to celebrate.
The first was in worship. Earlier in the service I was speaking about a person in the church family who had a unique and fruitful ministry and how much I admire that person. In the middle of the sermon he had to get up and leave to go serve in that ministry. I was grateful that he made the commitment to get up early on a day he was going to put in a long day of ministry and make it out to church for the first three-quarters of worship.
As my friend got up to go, right in the middle of the sermon, people began to clap for him as he headed out the door. (Of course there are some issues to address when a church applauds one of its own who gets up to leave in the middle of a sermon!) What I took the applause to mean was that the church family recognized and appreciates that this person is very engaged in a ministry to young people in our community – it is not an “official” ministry of our church (what does that mean anyway?) but we claim it and we claim that each and every one of us has a calling to minister wherever we find ourselves. We are committed to making the lives of our neighbors better and that is God’s plan for our church.
Each week I look out and see people who, motivated by their relationship with Jesus, are working to know and love their neighbors and serve their community to “leave it and those we encounter in the community better than we found them”.
The second vignette was Sunday afternoon standing in the swimming pool playing with a dozen kids from the church and looking over a back yard of fifty or so people from our church family talking, getting to know each other and becoming friends in the midst of being part of a family. It was one of the best things I have laid eyes on in the five years we have been worshiping together and goes in a mental file of other moments like it before and after church, at housebuilds, at Delanco Camp and many other places. We cannot love each other until we invest in getting to know each other. I am thankful for these two among many beautiful moments in our family history.
Tonight we are working to move the Ashe family into their condo in Atco and we are excited about what God has in store there.
Yesterday I was approached about beginning a Christian Recovery program at Crossroads and we will be investigating that possibility over the next few months.
Today the church made a $400 donation to a local missionary whose car broke down and is raising funds to continue in ministry.
This coming Sunday we will once again be in Matthew 13 and will be looking at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.
May God Bless you as you seek to know God and know God’s will for your life, as you learn to love your neighbor and serve all people through the love of Christ.
- Pastor Jim 7.18.11
Faith of the Farmer
This is one of my favorite times of the year for a lot of reasons, chief among those reasons is a stop I make on the way home from church each week. On our way home we head down Atsion Road to see the farm fields, woods and the lake but this time of year I veer off the left side of the road to stop in front of Dinky and Laura King’s farm stand. I watch expectantly as the spring thaw begins and the fields are turned over and prepared for the seed and small plants. It takes a lot of work and a lot of faith to be a farmer.
But for me the payoff is wonderful. Today I slipped a $10 bill in the old army box and carried a plastic bag filled with blueberries, onions, yellow squash, zucchini, a few tomatoes and an onion. Add a little Ohio beef from my in-law’s farm and I had a first class meal this afternoon.
There is a lot to learn from the rhythms and projects of farm life. Jesus used the example of a farmer to teach about the way the Word of God is offered to the world and received by all those who hear it.
Jesus told parables to instruct people on the principles of the Kingdom of God. Parables are stories that are fiction, but could have happened and feature a person rather than animals, plants or other inanimate objects (these are called fables). The parables taught a lesson or principle about the way God created the world and how the different parts would coexist under God’s authority. There are a lot of reasons why Rabbi’s in Jesus’ day used parables and why even today most people seem to learn a lesson better when a story is involved. Jesus and his methods point out to us once again the desire of God is to be known. God wants us to understand the world he has given as a gift and enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) thereof.
On Sunday we will examine the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. I am looking forward to meeting with you in worship and also to another trip to my favorite roadside stand in the Pines.
Pastor Jim
Relationships are Complicated
This week I spent some time out on the farm in Ohio and visited with some friends and family out there. They love to tell jokes so I thought I would bring one home to share with you.
An aged farmer and his wife were leaning against the edge of their pig-pen when the old woman wistfully recalled that the next week would mark their golden wedding anniversary.
“Let’s have a party, Homer,” she suggested. “Let’s kill a pig.”
The farmer scratched his grizzled head.
“Gee, Ethel,” he finally answered, “I don’t see why the pig should take the blame for something that happened fifty years ago.”
The truth is that even the best relationships can be complicated. Sadly I have had a front row seat over the past year to watch many of my good friends go through some rocky patches in their relationships. I know what it feels like to be confused and broken by the disintegration of a close relationship. A lot of damage can be done in a person’s life and sadly some people never make it back to living after one of these bombs goes off in their life.
In Matthew 12 Jesus drops a bomb on his mother, brothers and sisters. He says that they do not have more special place in his life than the disciples and God-seekers who are sitting around him and that he does not jump to their beck and call just because they share a bloodline. On the surface it seems as if Jesus is acting, well, un-Christ-like. But this account is part of the Word to teach us a lesson about authentic relationships, one that is as hard to uncover as it is important for many of us. On Sunday morning we will look at this passage – you can find the text here so you can prepare yourself for Sunday morning.
Matthew 12
This Sunday we will look at the secret to authentic relationships, how to find them and how to sanctify and improve the relationships we have – including our relationships within our own family. Hope to see you there. – Pastor Jim
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