Life In Greencastle

We moved our way through the third chapter of Philippians yesterday, which includes Paul's famous statements about pressing on towards the prize that awaits him in Christ Jesus. It gave us the chance to consider where our own focus has been of late and to remember that as Christians we are called onward towards a "sure and certain hope," a heavenly prize that far outweighs anything we could win, achieve, or secure in this life. We have this hope always set before us, but we are also now entering that time of year where we are encouraged and called to begin the journey towards our new life in Jesus Christ in earnest. It is the season we call Lent: this forty day journey that leads us up to Holy Week. For most of us, Lent is equated with some type of new commitment. We give up chocolate, or - if you prefer - we commit ourselves to do something positive in a new way. We make some gesture to show our devotion to God. In recent years, though, some of these disciplines ha...

Here is a good word from Henri Nouwen that ties in well with part of what we reflected upon yesterday in worship: "Nothing is real without deriving its reality from God. This was the great discovery of St. Francis when he suddenly saw the whole world in God's hands and wondered why he did not drop it. St. Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John Vianney, and all the saints are saints precisely because for them the order of being was turned around and they saw, felt, and - above all - knew with their heart that outside of God nothing is, nothing breates, nothing moves, and nothing lives. "This makes me aware that the basis of all ministry rests not in the moral life but in the mystical life. The issue is not to live as well as we can, but to let our life be one that finds its source in the Divine life." - From Gracias! I think what Nouwen is saying relates especially well to Paul and what we've discussed about him as we've been looking at Philippians. Paul...

Happy new year to everyone, and I hope you are enjoying the beautiful scene of snow swirling today. Here at church, we began our new year by delving into a new book of the Bible: Paul's letter to the Philippians . I say, "book," but as we explored yesterday, Philippians is actually a letter written from perhaps Christianity's most well known Christian missionary and preacher, the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote this particular letter while "in chains," under the watch of the Roman imperial guards. This wasn't the first time or the last time that Paul's bold preaching of the gospel was to land him in trouble with civic authorities. Yet, as we discovered yesterday by reading and listening to Paul's letter, he was a man far from feeling trapped or confined. Even facing the stringent limitations of being under watch, Paul was a man fully confident about his future and fully secure in the place God had him at that particular moment. I have been reading ...

This past Sunday, we talked in worship a good deal about the value of having communal songs. My sermon focus was largely on how one of the ways we pass on our faith to our children is through the music that we sing, and after the sermon I invited the congregation to fill out a little card that had at the top the words "My Favorite Hymns". The response was overwhelming. Not that we needed to verify this, but you all - as most Christians do - care a lot about hymns. Indeed, we all have certain hymns that are meaningful to us. I was speaking with Jean Holley this morning, and she noted how she has a few lines from one of her favorite hymns posted on the inside of one of her kitchen cabinet doors. Every time she opens that door, she is reminded of how much this is God's world and how richly God's glory and goodness shines throughout all creation (can you guess the hymn?). Not surprisingly, the hymns that received the most votes were the ones that have long topped the...

Yesterday if you joined us for worship you had the opportunity to hear and participate in our annual Christmas Cantata. (If you weren't able to join us yesterday, then I invite you to contact Mark McKee or Andy Lorimer to get a copy of the performance). I really enjoyed and appreciated this year's cantata, as I know many of you did as well. Cheryl and Patrick did such a phenomenal job (as always) of readying and preparing the choir and the musicians. As I listened to the songs and the readings yesterday, I thought about something Walter Wangerin Jr. wrote in his great book of meditations for Advent and Christmas, Preparing for Jesus . Wangerin reminds us that God is the music and that we are the instruments that God uses to make music to the world. Wangerin was speaking specifically of the individuals in the Christmas story who find themselves singing (and there is much singing in Luke's story of Jesus' coming and birth): Simeon's song and Mary's solo, the...

It is Monday, January 4th, and I am trying to catch up on what has happened in the world and in the community. As many of you know, I took the week off following the first Sunday of Christmas, which was a tremendous gift to receive. Thank you to all of those who helped afford this small vacation for me: for Jane Williams and her constant care and support in communicating our life together, for Rev. Tim Jessen and his willingness to travel up from Bloomington with his wife, Elma, and lead us into worship yesterday, and for the thousand others acts performed in my absence. I came into the office this morning to find the sanctuary stripped of the Christmas tree and the pulpit and other furniture returned to their ordinary state - signs that we have indeed moved through the last of 2009 and into a new year. This marks an anniversary: one whole year of living, working, ministering, and discovering with you. About this time last year, we had moved up to Greencastle, and I was busy fini...