First Word

Hey everybody, hope you are enjoying your care packages!

I gave you all a gift subscription to Relevant because I was hoping that we could discuss the articles in it here. I figured it would be a great way for us to keep in touch and be in God’s Word together even if we are all over the country.

So I opened the magazine and read the First Word article entitled Waiting on God. The first word article is always written by the founder/creator of Relevant Media Group, Cameron Strang. It always is a pretty strong article that sets the mood for each issue and I hope  this week we pull some great discussion from it.

²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Go ahead and crack open your Bible before you go any further and read this in context. (read Romans 8 )

Wow I decided I should read chapter 8 before I wrote the rest of and man there is a lot to talk about. But lets focus on verse 28 and following. This verse is our school theme and so I’ve been hearing it a lot and I actually laughed out loud when I saw Cameron use it in his article. It’s so fitting isn’t it.

How many of you are sure of what your future holds?

As I sit at my desk and prepare for the week I become overwhelmed. I don’t doubt that you feel the same way with all the changes going on in your life.

Do all things really work out for good?

Let’s make this a conversation. Please respond to any or all of the following questions. I’ll continue throughout the week.

What plans do you have for your future? ( Job, marriage, kids, location?)

Do you feel confident in those plans?

Do you have an action plan for your future? (Finish school, get the job as far away from Flint as possible, get married, new house, 1.5 kids…)

Where does God fit into your plans?

In Christ,

Chris

Change

So this space hasn’t been used in awhile, however I am trying to use this as a forum for St. Paul’s collage age young adults that are all over the united states to come back and connect with the church. We’ll be discussing faith and hope you join in the conversation

A Part of His Plan

Today at staff devotions we were talking about stewardship. Many people in the church mistake stewardship as an obligation to give money. The reality is further from the truth. Stewardship is a theme that plays throughout the narrative of God’s Word. From the charge to Adam to care for creation to Jesus’ Great Commission. God in His infinite glory and wisdom gave a life that is lived to the fullest by using the gifts he’s given us to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. God chose to use us as a part of His plan for salvation.

In Christ we lose the obligation of the Law and find joy in following it’s spirit, which is loving God and loving others. Not with an earthly love but with one that can only come from a person overflowing with God’s Love. The spilling out of that love is stewardship. The love that we receive from God not only appears in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but is then given abundantly in the gifts that God pours out on us. Having received these gifts we are commissioned to share them so that others may come to know Christ.

This process is how God chose to save the world. Many wonder why God doesn’t wave a magic wand to save the world. This question may not be given to us this side of heaven. But I do know that it has to do with the fact that God loves us. In his love he does not use His unlimited power to control us, rather he calls us and works in our hearts through His Word and Sacrament. This may seem like a slow and messy process but hey that’s love.

May you enjoy the stewardship gift you have been given in sharing the love of God that is found in Jesus Christ.

As for me and my home

Liz and I just got a new house. We call it our home, because we love where we live. I’ve had mixed feelings about Flint for awhile, but now I know for sure that God has put me in a community that’s right for me.
Living in Ann Arbor my whole life and then having a short say in Royal Oak gave me a wonderful experience of upper middle class. Now being in Flint for a little more than a year, I’ve found that the lower middle class has many of the same problems.
People don’t know they are jealously loved by God. They haven’t heard and know that Jesus Christ died for their sins.
Why haven’t people heard? Because like Joshua and the Israelites that confessed God as Lord (Joshua 24) I find myself confessing more than sharing.
Liz and I have made it an intentional purpose to share our home as a dwelling the our Lord Jesus Christ will work out of. Through Bible studies and service, we hope our home is a place where our neighbors can see Christ’s light shine.
My prayer for you is that you stop worrying about whether or not you have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord enough, and by the power of the Holy Spirit find yourself relying on your risen Lord.
May the grace that He gives you overflow as your reliance is seen by others.
“As for me and my house we will serve the Lord”

Seasoned

I like to cook. Working with food, and feeding friends and family just simply makes me happy. This week I’m beginning a Bible Study with our Jr. High Youth on the teachings of Jesus. The series beings with a study of Matthew 5: 1-16. I’d like to focus on verse 13 because it’s about salt, I think, and as I said before I love to cook and salt is a big part of cooking.

Salt is used for two major purposes; first it is used to preserve and second to season, or add flavor. When foods are salted well the salt enhances the flavor of the whole dish. It pulls everything together so you can enjoy the rich complexities of person who created the meal. Likewise all of creation is enhanced by Christ, and He works this unity through us.

Implied in this sermon is the correlation between followers of Christ and salt. If salt loses it’s saltiness it becomes no good. If we as Christians fail to preserve and season as Christ’s Body what good are we? Salt doesn’t control where it’s utilized, just like we as the Body of Christ has no control of where God will use us. We are simply to be what God has made us to be, salty, or should I say in his image. The problem is we’ve all failed to do this. We’ve all disobeyed God and pushed him away. So he sent his Son to die for us. His death brings believers into a new relationship with God. One where He makes us salty again. Now being  preserved eternally and seasoned in Christ we are called to share His love, seasoning and preservation, with the world.

May your life preserve and protect your family from the decay of this world, and may you be a seasoning to all those God puts in your life. That they might enjoy all the rich complexities of this vast creation and a relationship with their loving Creator.

As Good As Dry Bones

I hear from the Liar daily, he speaks to me in my own head voice. He reminds me of all the times I’ve failed to work hard enough, and didn’t take advantage of the opportunities God gave me. Today has been a little rough for me because I took the weekend off to celebrate the wedding of some great friends of mine. The lie I buy into is because I wasn’t working in Flint this weekend I haven’t been faithful to God. All I see around me are youth that are as good as dry bones. I’ve got numbers on my books that would be great for any church in the area. In reality I have only about 10% of those youth active.

Today I read Ezekiel 37: 1-14, where we find ourselves in the valley of dry bones. The valley that God calls Ezekiel to prophesy to bones that were so old and long forgotten, so dead, that they were dry. I imagine from later text that all Ezekiel could see was dry bones scattering the floor of this valley. All he could see is death.In this text we hear Israel, the bones, talk. They say:

Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean off.

The Liar speaks in a familiar voice saying that there is no hope for these bones. God silences him with His Son, Jesus Christ, who died so that all who’s “hope is lost” can be found in him.

You may hear lies in a familiar voice this week, may you find hope in the dry bones who are given life by the Spirit of the Living God. He is greater than anything you face. Take a moment to read this scripture and find hope in our eternal king, Jesus Christ.

Family Ministry

For those of you that don’t know I’m a youth leader that was trained to be a family life director. I have a passion for family ministry and use this lens in my everyday life, both at church and home. Today I was meeting with a group of church workers who meet once a month and we were talking about how to make church essential to peoples lives today.  The overwhelmingly prominent thing that made church essential for us was relationships. If we felt welcomed at our church and we were able to have a relationship with members of the congregation then church became so much more essential to our lives.  Church was no longer something that wouldn’t be missed if we left, and if we chose to stop going to church we would know that we were missing something or someone.

Lutherans have an interesting perspective on this thought. When we are in a relationship with people at church we are connected to the body of Christ. We have a relationship with Christ who acts through our church family. Luther talks about this using the term masks. That God is truly present, and hidden behind the loving and cherished relationships that we find within our congregation. We also believe that God is hidden behind the words of our pastors, and the dedication of our Sunday school teachers. We believe that God is in, with, and under the bread and wine at communion and that we truly receive him and his grace through this wonderful gift. In baptism God is present in His Word that has power to claim a lost child as his own. Church is essential not because of the sinful human beings that we find in church, but because of Jesus Christ who has redeemed us all and shows himself through one another.

My prayer for you this day is that you brush aside all the difficult aspects of your church family and embrace the love that Christ has shown you though these imperfect people. Notice Christ’s love that is shown through his body here on earth.

Praise the LORD

¹ Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.

² Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.

³ Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,

⁴ praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,

⁵ praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.

⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.         Psalm 150

So today the Jr. high youth are hosting a spaghetti dinner for our annual 5k fun run tomorrow. I woke up a little stressed out about it, and as the day has moved along I find myself feeling less and less prepared for the dinner. I’ve done meals for our church before and this meal has been done by our youth for awhile now, but  no one has any idea on how many people will show up. My youth parents that put it on last year said to expect 50 or so and many other people have said to expect around 150! That’s kind of a big difference.

Anyway I’ve found myself slightly stressed today. Then I read Psalm 150 Although this has nothing to do with a spaghetti dinner it has everything to do with why we’re putting it on. We are not here to carb up our runners for the big day tomorrow. We aren’t having our youth do this simply because we need money for gatherings and such. We need to be doing this to praise God! He is our joy and the true bread. We will gather in his house for fellowship and joy.

Tonight I’m going to praise God with an awesome group of youth and parents by serving others a little spaghetti and salad. If I were to add a new verse to this Psalm for tonight it would look something like this:

Praise the Lord with joy in service,

praise him with food and fellowship.

What would you’re verse look like?

God bless your day.

How Would You?

The first reading for this coming Sunday is from Acts 8: 26-40.

By the power of the Holy Spirit Philip took what the Ethiopian was reading and pointed him to Jesus Christ who was the lamb that was deprived of justice for us. This was such good news that once the Ethiopian saw water he asked to be baptized into the faith!

What an awesome story to encourage us to share Christ’s love. I would like to point out that Philip didn’t do much. He was led by God to the road that  Ethiopian was on. Philip was told to walk near the Ethiopian, and the Holy Spirit gave him the words to share of the good news of Jesus Christ.

I’d like to take another step back and bring this story to today. What is not said in these verses and what goes unnoticed in most peoples lives is that God had been calling this Ethiopian to know him for some time at this point in the story. I mean he was reading a sacred text, where did he get it. He had no idea what it meant, so why was he reading it. Philip while being taught by Jesus had no  idea that he would share his masters love with an Ethiopian down some road. He really had no idea why the Holy Spirit sent him to that specific desert road. It wasn’t until he heard the Ethiopian reading that he knew why God sent him to walk near this man.

What I’m getting at is this, you have no idea what God is doing. And that is such an awesome thing to realize. You might think you know how you’re serving God and be totally wrong. Yet God uses you. He lead some person to give or sell the Ethiopian the book of Isaiah. God prepared Philip with a proper understanding. He nurtured the curiosity of the Ethiopian and at just the right time lead Philip to share the good news that changed this man’s live forever. Not only that God brought the Ethiopian into his family and tied him in death and life to Christ through Baptism.

May you listen to God’s call. May you share the love of Christ indiscriminately. May you be led by God to some road south of where you are to find someone who God has called to be your brother or sister in Christ. Do not be discouraged when things don’t turn out the way you planned to share Christ’s love, but encouraged that God’s plans will always prevail.

I’m back!

Ok so it’s been awhile since I’ve last posted. Like over a month, it’s been very busy around these parts and I haven’t had much of a chance to write. So sorry to anyone who has been checking in to see the same post over and over.
Tomorrow morning I will write up a post from Acts 8.  If you want to you can go ahead and read that with me tonight.

Thanks Bob for the encouragement.

In Christ,

Chris