Life (and Death) Lessons for Peter

One of the knocks against the church, faith, the Bible, and so on, is that it can often seem so abstract. Okay, we read/hear that God loves us, that Jesus died for us, that we are called to grow in faith, and much more. But what does that really mean? What does it look like? How does it impact us in real, concrete ways? Sermons, Bible readings, prayer, and worship can be deeply meaningful. But if they only engage the head and intellect with abstract ideas and miss the heart and soul, then they lose much of their power. They are, at best, incomplete. At worst they are misleading, making us believe that all we need to do is hold the right ideas about God in our minds.

I don't know about you, but something that always helps me go deeper than the level of intellect and ideas is hearing real stories of real people. It helps me see and understand how these important ideas about God are made manifest and lived out in real people's lives.

This Friday (Good Friday) and Sunday (Easter Sunday), we will be following Simon Peter, one of Jesus' disciples and closest friends, as he sees and experiences the final few hours before Jesus' death and then the first few days after his resurrection. You see, Peter doesn't just learn new things about Jesus, though he does that too. He enters into and experiences everything from great confusion, raging anger, and deep despair, to rekindled hope and full restoration with his Lord and friend, Jesus.

Our two services (both at 10am) form a unified whole, with the story continuing from Friday through to Sunday. Be that as it may, if you can't make it out for both services, please do consider joining us for one or the other. We will look at the first four "acts" of this passion play on Friday, including a celebration of Communion:

• Act I: Submission and Service (John 13.1-17)
• Act II: Fight and Flight (Mark 14.32-50)
• Act III: Denial and Despair (John 18.15-27)
• Act IV: Death and... (John 19.16-30)

We will then move on to the final "act" on Sunday morning:

• Act V: Resurrection and Restoration (John 20-21)

We would love to celebrate with you and your family this Easter. But whether we see you or not, may the joy and love of God become more and more real for you this Easter season and always!

God's Word: What Is It Good For?

I was just a twinkle in my father's eye when Edwin Starr hit the charts in 1969 with his, now classic, "War (hunh!)! What is it good for? Absolutely nuthin' (say it again)!" It helped rally a generation in opposition to the war in Vietnam.

So, I must make apologies to Mr Starr as I introduce this week's continuation of our three-week series on the Bible: "God's Word: What Is It Good For?" After looking at 2 Timothy 3.1-15 and "The Power of Perspective" last week (i.e. the Bible's power to clarify and illuminate a good and proper perspective on God, ourselves, and the world in which we live), this week we will look at the usefulness of the Bible in other ways.

Now, you'll notice I have removed Edwin Starr's follow-up line -- "Absolutely nothing!" -- from the title of this week's message. I hope the reason is sufficiently obvious. However, it seems to me that many people in our culture today would be more than willing to keep that line in place when talking about the Bible. For some the Bible, at best, is hopelessly out of touch with the needs and perspectives of people today and, at worst, is hateful and dangerous.

This Sunday, rather than making a full-out defense of the Bible against these claims (though I am always willing to talk with anyone who wants to explre these ideas further), we will look at what the Bible has to say about itself in 2 Timothy 3.16-17:

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work."

More than merely giving a list of what is good and bad, right and wrong, God uses the Bible to change us from the inside out. I hope you can join us on Sunday as we explore this idea more fully.

A Steady Diet of God's Word

If you have spent a bit of time around the church at some point in your lifetime, I'll bet you have, at some point (if not at many points), been told that you need to be reading your Bible. Some of us, I'm sure, feel guilty and ashamed over the fact that we don't read the Bible as much as we feel we should. Others of us, maybe haven't heard this as much and wonder what the big deal is all about. Isn't the Bible just an old history book of sorts? Why should I bother spending time reading it today?



In our previous series on spiritual formation, we spoke of the Bible, along with prayer and worship, as being a crucial part of our spiritual nourishment at every stage of growth along the way. Over these next three weeks, we will be looking in depth at 2 Timothy 3.10-4.5, a portion of the New Testament that speaks of the ongoing importance of the Bible to the life of every follower of Jesus. If you're someone who needs a reminder about why the habit of reading your Bible is so important; or if you'd like to go deeper in your practice and understanding of Bible reading; or if you're someone who isn't sure what all the fuss over the Bible is about to begin with; then this three part series is for you. Please join us starting this Sunday at 10am! I hope to see you there.

Breaking Out of the Box

No doubt you've heard the popular catchphrase, "Think outside the box." This encourages us to see things from new perspectives and not get caught in the old way of doing things simply because "that's the way we've always done it before."

Missions has a long and, to be honest, rather chequered history in the church. There are many good examples of missions throughout church history, from Paul's pure and passionate desire to share the Good News of God's love with the Gentiles, to Mother Theresa's humble mission to care for the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. But there are many extremely bad examples too, from Rome's forced Christianization of Europe at the point of a sword, to modern anti-gay protests organized by the "Christian right" piously proclaiming that "God hates fags." I could go on.

Missions here at Nassagaweya, to the best of my knowledge, has always meant financially supporting people and organizations who are engaging in "good causes" from a Christian perspective. Our support of Presbyterians Sharing, PWS&D, The Deck, Evangel Hall, Operation Christmas Child, Jewels for Jesus, and so on has undoubtedly led to a number of good things for many different people in our community and around the world. I, for one, am proud of the fact that our congregation commits to give away at least 10% of our revenues every year to mission organizations and projects. But has this automatic financial support become a "box" for us, something we do simply because that's what we do?

This Sunday, we're taking a bit of a break from our Spiritual Formation series to think about missions and what it might look like to break out of this narrow and incomlete view of missions. (Although it actually relates very well to our topic for next Sunday -- stay tuned for that!) How can we be involved in missions in a fuller, more engaging way? Is there more to missions involvement than raising and sending money to needy people through trusted organizations? What might that look like for a congregation such as ours?

In order to answer these questions, we will be welcoming Karen Plater as a special guest speaker this Sunday. Karen is the Associate Secretary for Stewardship and Education for Mission for the Presbyterian Church in Canada. She will bring her wealth of experience and insight in order to help us envision an expanded understanding of missions. In other words, she's coming to help us "think outside the box."

My prayer for us, though, is that this will lead us to not only think outside the box, but to actually break out of the box altogether and to engage in missions in a fuller, more meaningful way. Of course, that part of the equation doesn't lie with Karen Plater or the Presbyterian Church in Canada, it lies with you and me. So, please come on out this Sunday and be part of the conversation.

Adol-essence

Last Sunday (Jan 31) we looked at the idea that childhood is a time of constructing the foundation of our lives. The life we will be able to build is dependent on the strength and security of the foundation.

Spiritually speaking, our foundation, our cornerstone, is Jesus (see 1 Corinthians 3.11, Ephesians 2.20). Our spiritual lives are also limited by the strength and security of this foundation in our hearts.

This week, we will see that adolescence is a time of discovering who we are, a time of growing into our own skin, of figuring out what we were made to do. What is the "calling" upon our lives? Who would God have us be? What would He have us do? Are we strong enough to move ahead and grow in this calling? These are the questions, the essence, of adolescence.

I hope you can join us on Sunday. If not, you can listen to this message, and all past messages, HERE.

Baby Steps

A couple years ago now, one of my daughters was invited to a classmate's birthday party. We had to reschedule a couple of things to make it happen, but my daughter really wanted to go so we did what we had to do. When I called to let the parents know that Mary would be coming, the Dad told me that some of the kids at school had been mean and spiteful to his daughter. They were saying that no one wanted to go to her party so why bother having one. Apparently some of the girls she had invited had already called to say no, they couldn't come for whatever reason. So the Dad said that his daughter would be really excited that Mary was coming. Was I ever glad we had gone to the trouble (though not too much trouble at all, really) to change things around so Mary could go!

Can you imagine inviting a bunch of "friends" to your birthday party and no one came? There is something deeply meaningful about having a group of friends gather to not only celebrate with you, but to celebrate you on your birthday. As we move from "Birth" to the next stage of spiritual growth this week ("Infancy"), one thing we see is the importance of celebrating new birth. A baby's most important emotional need is to be loved unconditionally, to be celebrated simply for being alive. This love and celebration is not dependent on what the baby has done or will do. Family and community express to a baby that s/he is precious, wanted, and an incredible joy. If a child doesn't receive this kind of love and affirmation as an infant, its emotional growth will forever but stunted as a result. They will be more guarded, less able to share joy and love with others, and much more besides.

This need to celebrate new birth also holds true when it comes to spiritual birth and growth. "Baby" Christians also need to be celebrated, to be loved unconditionally, and to be joyfully accepted into the "family" or community. Of course, knowing and experiencing the unconditional, unfailing love of our Heavenly Father is critical to this. But this love and celebration also needs to be embodied by the church (i.e. the "body of Christ").

Isn't it interesting, then, that an informal lunch and skating party has been organised for this Sunday, completely separately from this series of messages? One of our Community Groups decided recently to host this event and to extend an invitation to the congregation, and especially to the newer people and families among us. God certainly does have a neat way of pulling these kinds of things together sometimes! So, whether you like to skate or not, please join us on Sunday after church for lunch, skating (weather permitting), games, conversation, and plenty of celebration! (Directions will be available at church Sunday morning.)

Hitting the Target

You know, whether it's archery, darts, or anything else, anyone can get a bullseye... if you draw the target after you've fired the arrow/dart. The key to improving, though, is to set the target out in front of you, shoot the arrow/dart, and then look to see how you've done. Then you do it again... and again... and again.

Of course the question, for those of us who would call ourselves followers of Jesus, is this: what's the target? In other words, what are we aiming for? What's a bullseye? And how will we know if we're getting better?

Well, here at NPC we have set out the target in the following terms: "Our Mission is to help people experience a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ." While the Bible can sometimes seem a little arcane and difficult to understand in places, there is absolutely no doubt that God invites us to grow and change, to become more like Jesus (e.g. John 3.3, 2 Corinthians 3.18 and 5.17, Ephesians 4.11-15. This is not something we do for ourselves, mind you, simply trying hard to be like Jesus. It is God's Spirit at work within us, though we do need to open ourselves and partner with the Spirit in this work.) And there is no doubt that those of us who have experienced and are experiencing this transformation are called, also by the work and power of the Holy Spirit, to introduce others to the life-changing love of God as seen in Jesus (e.g. Matthew 28.18-20, Acts 1.8, 1 Peter 3.15-16).

Great, sounds good! But there's an old piece of wisdom that crops up in my mind at this point. Maybe you've heard it before: "You can't lead someone somewhere that you have not been to yourself." If we are setting a target of "helping others experience a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ" when we have not experienced or are not experiencing that kind of life-changing relationship ourselves, then we are doomed to failure from the start.

Over these next few weeks, we are going to be looking at the question of what it means to grow in Christ, to mature spiritually. Like the stages of development in our physical, emotional and intellectual growth, there are also stages of growth and development in our relationship with God. If it is true that "we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (Ephesians 4.15), then maybe we can see similar stages in our spiritual growth, i.e. Birth, Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence, Young Adulthood, and Adulthood.

Please understand, I have no interest in wagging my finger at you or anyone else for not being spiritual enough or mature enough. I simply want us to be able to take an honest, searching look at ourselves so we can each figure out where we might be on this continuum of growth. Then we will be able to see more clearly where the target is for us and ask the Holy Spirit to start moving us closer to bullseye, closer to Jesus.

As always, if you can't make it out to the services (Sundays at 10am), you can catch up by downloading an audio recording of the messages HERE. Hope to see you soon!