The schedule is someone different than normal this month.
Trustees: September 24th - 7PM
Deacons: October 1st - 7PM.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Fall Sunday School details
Children's Sunday School will be three groups. "Pre-readers", "Young readers", and "5th Grade and Up". We'd like to recruit enough teachers to rotate class assignments more often.
The Adult study class will be offered twice in two seperate sessions. The topic will be based on the book "Heart Knowledge: Spiritual Discipline and the Experience of God".
The Adult study class will be offered twice in two seperate sessions. The topic will be based on the book "Heart Knowledge: Spiritual Discipline and the Experience of God".
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Coming Soon - middle-school youth group
A youth group for 5th-grade to 8th-grade range will begin later this year. Details are not final, but meetings will be monthly.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
What's the Question?
Pastor Matthew asked me to post this sermon from July 27:
What’s the Question?
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 (parables)
Some people are just great storytellers. You ask them something and before you know it, you find yourself so spellbound by their story you no longer remember what your question was to begin with! Children of a certain age, say around 10 or so, can be especially good at this.
Question: “Did you brush your teeth? Response: “There are three different of teeth in a snakes mouth Daddy – that’s what Patrick said and he found a snake with a tooth sticking right out of the middle of it’s belly! And it was a shiny, like a sharks tooth but not as ancient. I found a shark’s tooth once,…”
I wonder how many great writers started out like this?
One of the most exciting and bewildering things about the stories Jesus tells is that we don’t always get to hear the questions that prompted Jesus’ stories. Matthew, the gospel writer, strings together several such stories for us this morning…and we never know what inquiry led to Jesus’ answer. What we do know is that if you break into them, the parables open us to a whole new world of questions and possibilities than would not have existed without them.
[read] Mt 13:31-33,44-52… (link to Matthew 13)
Some questions require a story for an answer. For instance, Why did you become a pastor? How did you know you were called to be an elder? How do plants grow? How can we help the church grow? What is the kingdom of heaven really like?...
If any of these questions were asked of our Lord, we might here the introduction to his response come out the same: And he put before them a parable…
OK, we can take the first line for what it is worth. Heaven is big, more enormous that we can imagine. And, the Kingdom of Heaven, with all its royal and divine splendor must be amazing. To compare such a thing to a tiny mustard seed is intriguing. Jesus must be ready to spin quite a yarn….
He reiterates the smallest of the seeds – we get that already – and then he describes how it grows and grows into the ‘greatest of shrubs.”. Well, that part is debatable. I have a willow from Japan in my back yard that is much greater than any other shrub I’ve ever seen. It takes up half the width of the garage and it is over six feet high. It would be even bigger if we didn’t keep it trimmed…and probably wider if it were not for our battle with the Japanese Beetles that come and eat its leaves.
But I’ll give him his point – ‘greatest’ is a fairly subjective word. Whether his mustard shrub or my Hakuro Nashiki Willow is greater depends on our relative love of our bushes…and I love that willow. Whether one preacher is “greater” than another depends at least as much upon the parishioners’ preparations to hear the Word of the Lord, as it does upon the words, tone or style of the sermon maker.
At this point in the parable, things begin to break down. Logic seems to go out the window when Jesus tells his listeners that the mustard shrub becomes a tree. “The greatest of shrubs is becoming a tree? ???? A shrub is a shrub and a tree is a tree last time I looked. The commentators suggest that Jesus may have been lampooning one of the symbols of the Roman Empire here: The empire as a mighty tree – and everyone agrees that Jesus knew full well that no bird was small enough or confident enough to nest in a mustard bush. So why did he choose to defy logic and his own experience in creating the mustard tree that doesn’t exist? Was it just for a political joke, or did he wish his hearers to all give themselves over to him and join in imagining, “what if”?
Apparently, the Kingdom of God does defy both nature and logic. Perhaps it really is like an impossible mustard tree filled with nesting birds. We human beings are often given over to the absurd. We can even learn from it. For instance, what does Smokey the Bear say from beneath the broad rim of his Ranger Hat? [Only you can prevent forest fires!] Never mind that bears seldom wear hats and never speak. The lesson stays with us nonetheless….be careful with fire when you are camping or cooking out.
And what might be some lessons of the mustard tree? It depends upon what the question is you bring to it. Does anyone remember the question? ….. If you do, your memory fails you, because there is no question in the scripture. Jesus simply begins in the middle of a story unprompted.
Let me come at it another way. What happens to the story when we bring another story to it and let them stand alongside each other? Where one story ends, the next may add to the understanding of the first.
The prolific preacher and writer Will Willamon of Duke University tells about an 85 year old woman he knows.
Every week she would bake two batches of oatmeal cookies – about 30 cookies each. She would place a couple in small brown paper bags and take them to a nearby prison for juvenile offenders. Willamon thought this was a ‘nice way for an elderly lady to occupy herself.”
One day, he went to the prison on a visit. While he was speaking with the Superintendent, the man said, “Those cookies have changed everything around here”. The young men stand behind their barred doors at night and wait eagerly to get their little brown bag of cookies. For some of them, the cookies are the only gift they have ever been given”.
Willamon says, “I’ve never looked at an oatmeal cookie the same way.”
Apparently, the Kingdom of Heaven is not just like a mustard seed, it is also like an oatmeal cookie. It is the least liked cookie, but when it is made in small batches and given to hardened criminals, it becomes a way of changing the world for the better and setting men free.
We don’t know the original question that prompted Jesus’ parables as they are recorded in Matthew, but we do know they can still answer our questions. If we come to them with an attitude of openness, and prepare our hearts to be taken away by their strange juxtapositions, anachronistic language and illogic, we will discover new ways of being the church, participating in the kingdom of heaven.
And the discoveries we make will be truly surprising, truly counter-intuitive. For instance, if we bring the questions, “how can the church grow?” to the parable of the mustard seed several things happen. First, our mantra that ‘bigger is better’ gets left outside; for the mustard seed being sown in the field of Jesus parable is the smallest seed of all.
A few years ago, when I led church growth retreats and spent time studying demographics, parking lots and worship styles and their relationship to church size, the notion that small congregations can be vital growing edges of the Kingdom of God was often overlooked. People would give the idea a nod as if such small places might one day be the church, if they would just get their act together and do some of the things that were being taught at the seminar. And then they would “move-on” to speaking about programs and mega churches that they felt truly made a difference. Important things, they conjectured, could never come out of so small a seed.
But perhaps all of us – those who study church growth and those who simply wonder what makes a church a church should stop and reconsider this small parable from Matthew. For here God in Jesus Christ tells us what he means by church growth and asks us to honor what he honors. The kingdom of God begins with Tiny seeds growing into impossible trees; it is nourished by oatmeal cookies filled with raisins and hope; and everything is changed when large and small congregations set aside what they think they know and open their hearts to God’s imagination.
There are many other questions we can bring to the many parables that Jesus tells, but the word to hear from bringing our one question about church growth to this one parable about the mustard seed seems to be this:
Congratulations, the influence of your church’s ministry is like the “mighty
roar of the tiniest mouse”
It is like two little oatmeal cookies given to a desperately lost and hungering
child.
It is like the smallest of the seeds growing into a little bush.
AND thus the influence of your church’s ministry is exactly like the impact
of the Kingdom of Heaven…
What’s the Question?
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 (parables)
Some people are just great storytellers. You ask them something and before you know it, you find yourself so spellbound by their story you no longer remember what your question was to begin with! Children of a certain age, say around 10 or so, can be especially good at this.
Question: “Did you brush your teeth? Response: “There are three different of teeth in a snakes mouth Daddy – that’s what Patrick said and he found a snake with a tooth sticking right out of the middle of it’s belly! And it was a shiny, like a sharks tooth but not as ancient. I found a shark’s tooth once,…”
I wonder how many great writers started out like this?
One of the most exciting and bewildering things about the stories Jesus tells is that we don’t always get to hear the questions that prompted Jesus’ stories. Matthew, the gospel writer, strings together several such stories for us this morning…and we never know what inquiry led to Jesus’ answer. What we do know is that if you break into them, the parables open us to a whole new world of questions and possibilities than would not have existed without them.
[read] Mt 13:31-33,44-52… (link to Matthew 13)
Some questions require a story for an answer. For instance, Why did you become a pastor? How did you know you were called to be an elder? How do plants grow? How can we help the church grow? What is the kingdom of heaven really like?...
If any of these questions were asked of our Lord, we might here the introduction to his response come out the same: And he put before them a parable…
OK, we can take the first line for what it is worth. Heaven is big, more enormous that we can imagine. And, the Kingdom of Heaven, with all its royal and divine splendor must be amazing. To compare such a thing to a tiny mustard seed is intriguing. Jesus must be ready to spin quite a yarn….
He reiterates the smallest of the seeds – we get that already – and then he describes how it grows and grows into the ‘greatest of shrubs.”. Well, that part is debatable. I have a willow from Japan in my back yard that is much greater than any other shrub I’ve ever seen. It takes up half the width of the garage and it is over six feet high. It would be even bigger if we didn’t keep it trimmed…and probably wider if it were not for our battle with the Japanese Beetles that come and eat its leaves.
But I’ll give him his point – ‘greatest’ is a fairly subjective word. Whether his mustard shrub or my Hakuro Nashiki Willow is greater depends on our relative love of our bushes…and I love that willow. Whether one preacher is “greater” than another depends at least as much upon the parishioners’ preparations to hear the Word of the Lord, as it does upon the words, tone or style of the sermon maker.
At this point in the parable, things begin to break down. Logic seems to go out the window when Jesus tells his listeners that the mustard shrub becomes a tree. “The greatest of shrubs is becoming a tree? ???? A shrub is a shrub and a tree is a tree last time I looked. The commentators suggest that Jesus may have been lampooning one of the symbols of the Roman Empire here: The empire as a mighty tree – and everyone agrees that Jesus knew full well that no bird was small enough or confident enough to nest in a mustard bush. So why did he choose to defy logic and his own experience in creating the mustard tree that doesn’t exist? Was it just for a political joke, or did he wish his hearers to all give themselves over to him and join in imagining, “what if”?
Apparently, the Kingdom of God does defy both nature and logic. Perhaps it really is like an impossible mustard tree filled with nesting birds. We human beings are often given over to the absurd. We can even learn from it. For instance, what does Smokey the Bear say from beneath the broad rim of his Ranger Hat? [Only you can prevent forest fires!] Never mind that bears seldom wear hats and never speak. The lesson stays with us nonetheless….be careful with fire when you are camping or cooking out.
And what might be some lessons of the mustard tree? It depends upon what the question is you bring to it. Does anyone remember the question? ….. If you do, your memory fails you, because there is no question in the scripture. Jesus simply begins in the middle of a story unprompted.
Let me come at it another way. What happens to the story when we bring another story to it and let them stand alongside each other? Where one story ends, the next may add to the understanding of the first.
The prolific preacher and writer Will Willamon of Duke University tells about an 85 year old woman he knows.
Every week she would bake two batches of oatmeal cookies – about 30 cookies each. She would place a couple in small brown paper bags and take them to a nearby prison for juvenile offenders. Willamon thought this was a ‘nice way for an elderly lady to occupy herself.”
One day, he went to the prison on a visit. While he was speaking with the Superintendent, the man said, “Those cookies have changed everything around here”. The young men stand behind their barred doors at night and wait eagerly to get their little brown bag of cookies. For some of them, the cookies are the only gift they have ever been given”.
Willamon says, “I’ve never looked at an oatmeal cookie the same way.”
Apparently, the Kingdom of Heaven is not just like a mustard seed, it is also like an oatmeal cookie. It is the least liked cookie, but when it is made in small batches and given to hardened criminals, it becomes a way of changing the world for the better and setting men free.
We don’t know the original question that prompted Jesus’ parables as they are recorded in Matthew, but we do know they can still answer our questions. If we come to them with an attitude of openness, and prepare our hearts to be taken away by their strange juxtapositions, anachronistic language and illogic, we will discover new ways of being the church, participating in the kingdom of heaven.
And the discoveries we make will be truly surprising, truly counter-intuitive. For instance, if we bring the questions, “how can the church grow?” to the parable of the mustard seed several things happen. First, our mantra that ‘bigger is better’ gets left outside; for the mustard seed being sown in the field of Jesus parable is the smallest seed of all.
A few years ago, when I led church growth retreats and spent time studying demographics, parking lots and worship styles and their relationship to church size, the notion that small congregations can be vital growing edges of the Kingdom of God was often overlooked. People would give the idea a nod as if such small places might one day be the church, if they would just get their act together and do some of the things that were being taught at the seminar. And then they would “move-on” to speaking about programs and mega churches that they felt truly made a difference. Important things, they conjectured, could never come out of so small a seed.
But perhaps all of us – those who study church growth and those who simply wonder what makes a church a church should stop and reconsider this small parable from Matthew. For here God in Jesus Christ tells us what he means by church growth and asks us to honor what he honors. The kingdom of God begins with Tiny seeds growing into impossible trees; it is nourished by oatmeal cookies filled with raisins and hope; and everything is changed when large and small congregations set aside what they think they know and open their hearts to God’s imagination.
There are many other questions we can bring to the many parables that Jesus tells, but the word to hear from bringing our one question about church growth to this one parable about the mustard seed seems to be this:
Congratulations, the influence of your church’s ministry is like the “mighty
roar of the tiniest mouse”
It is like two little oatmeal cookies given to a desperately lost and hungering
child.
It is like the smallest of the seeds growing into a little bush.
AND thus the influence of your church’s ministry is exactly like the impact
of the Kingdom of Heaven…
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