The Most Important Thing About You

I'm kind of taking the easy way out this week. Below is a quote from a 20th century Christian writer named A.W. Tozer. It, along with the story of Moses and the children of Israel from Exodus 32-34, will provide the framework of our messages over these next few weeks. Hope to see you Sunday!

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

“The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self disclosure of her witness concerning God.

“Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, “What comes into your mind when you think about God?” we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the Church will stand tomorrow.

“That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.

“A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”

A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy, ch.1 Why we must think rightly about God.

More Than A Missions Trip

I'm going to keep it short this week in order to better highlight two important events coming up in the next few days.

The first is this week's Sunday service (10 am here at the church as usual). We will have two special guest speakers coming this week. Karin Schemeit and Steve Sainsbury are members of Trafalgar PC in Oakville. They aren't ministers -- at least not in the sense the church usually reserves for the word -- they are just regular folk who decided to get involved in an awesome initiative their church started a few years back. Trafalgar PC is now partnering with a community in Uganda. I don't know exactly what the church's role is in the community's ongoing plan for development and sustainability, but that's why Steve and Karin are coming to share their experiences with us. It is a wonderful testimony to what a few ordinary people can do when we prayerfully engage in mission beyond the safety of our own churches, communities, and countries. You won't want to miss what Karin and Steve have to say, so please join us if you can!

The second is a meeting at NPC coming up this Monday evening, Oct 26, at 7:30 pm. The meeting is to explore the possibility of partnering with a community in the Third World ourselves. As I spoke about this past Sunday, Paul's (and Jesus') dream for the church was of an interconnected, worldwide, loving partnership of brothers and sisters in Christ. If we think of church as something only here in our own communities, then our church is too small. On Monday, I will be sharing a bit more of my desire to connect with the broader church and we'll begin brainstorming and dreaming together about what the possibilities might be. We'll ask questions like: Where could we go? What could we do? [And most importantly,] Why would we do it? You won't be committing yourself to anything by simply coming to the meeting on Monday, but if you're at all interested, please come and join the conversation. If you're interested but can't make it on Monday, please email me to let me know.

Thanks! See you soon!

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Remember Bell's old advertising tagline of "Reach out and touch someone"? Maybe this will help refresh your memory...

It's a great commercial, really. We all want to share good times with good friends. This vignette of meeting new friends on a family camping trip and connecting so strongly that you want to keep in touch certainly connects with me, anyway. And while a phone call (or emails, texting, or other more current modes of communicating) might not be as good as being together, it can go a long way in maintaining that connection from a distance.

As we've seen over the last couple of weeks, Paul is very interested in creating and maintaining connections among the many churches scattered around the world. He not only facilitated a collection for needy Christians in Jerusalem, he even arranged to have representatives from the various churches come with him to Jerusalem to deliver the collection. This is much more than just good PR. Paul's heart was to create and maintain real connections and relationships with real people in strong and meaningful ways.

Following Jesus' lead (see Mark 3.31-35), everyone in the early church called fellow believers "brother" and "sister." But Paul didn't want to just use nice words of relationship and family, he really wanted to live it out and see others live it out too. Of course, Paul didn't have the convenience of our modern communication technologies, so he wrote letters -- lots of letters. But even more important than the letters were his travels, his visits. He wouldn't have been writing all those letters if he hadn't first made all of those real and lasting connections with all those people (i.e. brothers and sisters) in places like Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, and so on.

It seems to me that what we in the modern church have gained in ease of communication, we have lost in real connections and relationships with our brothers and sisters around the world. Just because we have access to so much information about what is happening all around the world; just because we know what groups like PWS&D and World Vision and Canadian Foodgrains Bank are doing around the world; just because we choose to support these and other groups financially; we seem to feel that we are more connected than we truly are.

I'm not saying we shouldn't support these organisations -- of course we should! Why would we have collected a special offering for PWS&D last week otherwise? I'm saying that we need to go deeper, make stronger connections, develop and maintain real relationships with real people (i.e. brothers and sisters) in real and meaningful ways.

And how do we do that? Well, that's what we're going to look at this coming Sunday. Using Philippians 2.19-30 as the starting point, we'll look at Paul's vision/goal for the church of real connections with real people in real ways. And we'll ask the question, "How can we make this a reality here at Nassagaweya?" My vision/goal for us at NPC is that, over time, this will become a distinctive identifying mark of who we are as a congregation. Please join us on Sunday if you can.

(PS If you weren't with us last Sunday and would still like to contribute to either the Centsability or special offering to PWS&D, please bring it along this Sunday. You can listen to last week's message about it HERE. Thanks!)

Mission and Money

Yes, it's true -- I am going to be asking you for money. But before you click quickly on to another page, muttering, "I knew he was going to get to this sooner or later; the church is always asking for money," please hear me out for a minute first. I don't want you to give anything unless you are fully convinced that this is the right thing for you to do.

First, I am not asking for myself or the needs of my congregation. I am asking on behalf of some of the poorest and most devasted people on the planet, those caught in the grip of circumstances well beyond their control, whether famine or flood, disease or disaster, economic downturn or national debt. Just as Paul collected money among the churches for the needy of Jerusalem, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ (see e.g. 2 Corinthians 8-9, the subject of our message this coming Sunday), we are collecting money for the needy of the world through the work of Presbyterian World Service and Development (PWS&D). In partnership with churches and mission organizations around the world, PWS&D is active in bringing sustainable development (health, food, water, shelter, etc.) to some of the most underdeveloped communities in the world. They are also active in bringing emergency relief to places caught up in natural disaster, like the South Pacific after the many typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis over the past few weeks. Yes, I am asking for money, but it isn't to keep the lights or the furnace on in our little church building here in Nassagaweya. It is to bring food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the destitute, and shelter to the homeless.

Second, if you have been following along with our current series of messages about mission, then you won't be able to escape the fact that so much of the good work people are able to do through organizations like International Justice Mission, Sleeping Children Around the World, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, World Vision, PWS&D, and so on, can only happen when people give generously to their work. We are merely trying to facilitate a collection of money at the moment to go to one of these organizations, PWS&D. If it is your practice or your plan to give to one or more of these other organizations, that's wonderful -- please give generously! If not, or if you would like to give to PWS&D as well, please consider giving to this collection this week.

This Sunday is Thanksgiving. As we give thanks for all of God's goodness and bounty to us here in this rich and abundant land, we will be collecting a special offering, over and above usual weekly givings to the church, to go to disaster relief and other pressing needs through the work of PWS&D. If you can't be with us on Sunday, you can either visit their website and donate directly (www.presbyterian.ca/donate/pwsd), or drop off your donation to the church sometime during the next two weeks.

Well, I hope you're still with me. More than that, I hope you'll consider giving generously. The need is great, yes, but we can make a difference.