8 posts tagged “new hope baptist valparaiso”
I love science - always have. I still have fond memories of chemistry sets, microscopes, and the Thing Factory 2. The first path God led me down in this life was to be a physician - a pediatrician actually. Unfortunately, he didn't make me get up and go to class every day, nor miraculously give me knowledge that I hadn't studied.
But I still love to learn about the universe and its amazing ways. So when I saw this post today, and the pdf book download, I couldn't help but pass it on. One of the things I hope will be said of me when my ministry days are done is that he helped people see that followers of Jesus can love the exploration of science as much if not more than others.
This book is so amazingly well written even nongeeks could appreciate the content. (and the minimal math :) )
"He drew a circle..."
He drew a circle that shut me out--
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
"Outwitted" by Edwin Markham (complete poem)
That's my goal in life. To work with Love to help people come in.
Beginning with Psalm 100
A psalm of thanksgiving.
1 Shout with joy to the LORD, O earth!
2 Worship the LORD with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.
3 Acknowledge that the LORD is God! He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.
5 For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
Psalms 100:1-5 (NLT)
Our worship set
- Amazed
- Forever
- Change My Heart O God
- It Is Well With My Soul
Emily Shermer sang "All Creatures Of Our God and King" before the message.
We used "Have Thine Own Way" as our hymn of commitment.
The idea was to put songs out there that would help people focus on God's faithfulness - even in times of pain and devastation. I took a minute to introduce "It Is Well With My Soul" to the congregation, making the point again that songs are set to music, but the words are the conduit to the heart. Each generation has songs that speak their heart language, and we have 4 generations in worship.
We continued the "Mythbusters" series with a message on the myth that "God Owes Me".
11 As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. 12 As he entered a village there, ten lepers stood at a distance, 13 crying out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"
14 He looked at them and said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, their leprosy disappeared.
15 One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, "Praise God, I'm healed!" 16 He fell face down on the ground at Jesus' feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, "Didn't I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? 18 Does only this foreigner return to give glory to God?" 19 And Jesus said to the man, "Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well."
Luke 17:11-19 (NLT)
I asked the congregation to live like the 10th leper.
It's been one year ago today. I miss him.
Eulogy for Wiley A. Wilson
He was just one of those guys. He lived an unremarkable life. If you “Google” Wiley Wilson of Macon, GA you won’t find one word, not one picture, of this man’s life. There’s not a building anywhere that will be named after him. We’ll leave here today and a little later on a marker will be placed on his gravesite. It will have the barest of information. Born – Died, WW2 vet. Maybe a few more words like “Loving Father” or something to make us feel better. But that’s not much, is it – to mark a life spanning 87 years.
But you know, some of those guys who make a difference never make the papers. Some of those guys who have an impact of people for generations never show up in many photos. Why is that?
Because somewhere along the way they decided – “It’s not about me.”
Character, folks. Character.
It doesn’t happen in an instant. You don’t get it overnight. It comes – it is carved out of a life over a life-time of self-denial, day after day after day of choosing to do the right thing rather than the easy thing. And when you look at what a man does with the life that God gives him – as you try to measure the impact – know this – the conduct of a man will never outperform – outlive – or outlast – the content of his character.
Character matters.
That’s what I think God was saying here in Micah chapter 6. This isn’t one of those places we turn to in the Bible when we want to feel good. Micah was God’s man on the scene during a period when Israel was rotten. They had all the rules anyone ever needed. They had a history of God delivering them. But they wanted life on the cheap – wanted to choose pleasure over principle. And they extended what they were doing along those lines to the way they related to God. Just throw the old guy a bone – kill another cow, or lamb. He’ll leave you alone. But God didn’t want to leave them alone. He never wants to leave us alone. So for the umpteenth (that’s a theological term we learn in seminary that means “a bunch”) time, God went back to basics.
8 No, O people, the LORD has already told you what is good, and this is what he requires: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8 (NLT)
Character matters. It’s not what you do to be seen – by God or by man – that really says what you care about – who you really are – no, it’s the little things, the unseen things that tell who you are.
“… this is what He requires: to do what’s right…”
There were a lot of times growing up as the soon of a share cropper, bitterly poor, that if he had decided to steal or cheat, many would have understood. Times when people looked down on him and his “kind” – the poor – that he could have taken something of theirs and said “they deserve this” or “they won’t miss it, they’ve got plenty”. But he never did.
I can remember one time vividly. We were making the payday rounds in oh maybe 1964 in daddy’s 1955 Plymouth. 4 barrel carburetor. First one, you know. Eight years in our family made it look a little ragged at this point, but we were too. We had moved out to daddy’s dream – 40 acres of land, and our nightmare – a trailer 55ft long by 10 feet wide. Ever try living in a U-boat above water? But the payments on that land, on mother’s car (63 Mercury Meteor station wagon – sweet!) and I suspect on doctor bills for a certain sickly little boy, pushed them pretty hard. So daddy would sign a receipt for things he needed between paydays with people for gas, for propane, and for hardware. Then on payday he’d go around the circuit and pay them off or pay them down.
One day he had done that (can’t remember whether the last place we had been was Seymour’s Hardware or the Phillips 66 station, but daddy looked in his wallet and saw that he had ten dollars too much. I can remember being happy and hoping we’d get to spend it at Ben Franklin’s on toys or something like that, but daddy turned the Plymouth around and went back and argued with Mr. Seymour I think, that he had been given too much change. It went on for 5 minutes until daddy told him that he wasn’t taking anyone else’s money and that when Mr. Seymour checked his till and the end of the day he’d see daddy was right. He must have been, because I never heard anything about it. Folks, we were poor. When daddy looked in that wallet and saw that $10 bill, there were a few ones in there but that was it. There were times when he wouldn’t eat supper at work so we could have lunch at school. He could have used the money – we could have – but it wasn’t right.
We learned by his example what exactly was right.
He did right when he left to go to the CCC camp because his family needed the money. He did right when he came home to help his mother before she died. He did right when as soon as she was buried he went off to war. He did right when no one was looking. He worked 8 hours for 8 hours pay, because it was right. He finished a job he started. He was faithful as a husband as a father because it was right.
Yeah, I think Daddy understood God’s heart on that.
…To love mercy…
I think I can say without a doubt that my father was the most unselfish person I have ever known. For almost all of his life, I can seldom remember my father doing anything or buying anything just for him. He lived through his family’s joys. When he gave us something, whether it was 50 cents in front of Ben Franklin’s 5 and 10ct store with the admonition “don’t spend it all in one place” or much, much later, a car or motorcycle, he got such joy out of it you had to smile. It gave him joy. The same thing happened with the grandchildren. I know with mine, the payday trips to Toys R Us would conclude with daddy on the floor with Adam and then Sean, rolling Hot Wheels or pretending to shoot soldiers, and daddy laughing at whatever the boys were doing.
We’d go fishing with daddy, and I’ll bet that if we were out there 4 hours, 3 hours and 45 minutes of that was spent by him baiting our hooks or untangling our line. I think we still hold the record for how many ways a boy can tangle line on a Garcia Mitchell model 300 reel. He never complained about it, just laughed at our mistakes and fixed them.
He hated, absolutely hated to see anyone hurt. He was a warrior for a time, not by choice but by duty. And when those days were over, he tried everything he could to keep either of his boys from going down the path of a warrior. A patriot yes, but he hated war. It wasn’t something he talked about.
He had an innate fondness for creatures. Cows, horses, dogs. When we lived in the trailer, we reached the critical mass once for beagles and other stray dogs. I don’t know how many we had at the time but I know it took a long time and I guess money to feed them. So one day when Daddy and the two of us were gone, Mother loaded all the dogs up except a couple and took them to the pound. Daddy was heartbroken.
He hated cats most all his life. But during the last couple of years, a particular cat had decided to straighten daddy out about that. So this cat “took up” at the house, and because he had a big heart, daddy fed it. Big mistake. Cats see that as an engagement ring and they were matched forever. When daddy had his surgery last year, and it was horrible surgery, he was cut all over; we were all worried about him. He was worried about the cat. I had to go out there, check on the cat, take a picture of it and bring it back to show daddy that it was alright. “Good”, he said. That’s all I needed.
That mercy thing? Yeah, I think Daddy got that too.
… To walk humbly with your God.”
Daddy came to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior formally at an advanced age. Those of us who are supposed to know about such things will tell you that having someone come to trust Christ at the age of 65 is on par with being struck by lightening twice. Most people, if they don’t come to know him by 18 – don’t. That never made sense to me, because our faith is based on facts. But that’s what those stats say, so we spend a lot of money on Vacation Bible School and we try to help kids find Jesus.
But I have really spent some time over the last few weeks with this, because of Daddy, trying to figure out if that is true – if we only get a real chance at helping people know Jesus when they are little. You see I have some people who aren’t kids anymore, that I love, (one of whom isn’t here today) [*adlibbed because my cousin Rick wasn’t there] who I love, but who don’t seem to love God like I love him. And it bothers me, a lot. Maybe you have people you love like that too.
So I’ve been looking at the Bible, praying and listening, trying to understand – why daddy? Why then?
Why daddy? Well, I know that daddy wasn’t fooled by his press clippings. He knew he wasn’t perfect, that he was a sinner. And I know that some of the things that really matter to people – that some Christians use as markers on whether you are in – meaning saved – or out, meaning lost, were part of daddy’s life for a long time.
Daddy for example, liked a cold beer occasionally. No, we never that I can remember had it in the fridge at home, but he’d drink it when he went fishing with our uncle William. I recall in fact them laughing about someone falling out of the boat one dark night when they were setting trot-lines at lake Sinclair. He also loved his cigars. Early on it was Tampa Nugget Blunts, later Dutch Masters. So many of those Tampa Nuggets went through his system that he had a Piggly Wiggly grocery bag filled with the bands off the cigars that he had us believing we could turn in like green stamps and receive our weight in gold.
Yep, those two things would put him outside the camp for a lot of church people. But remember, daddy wasn’t treated very well by church people growing up. If you’ve lived in Macon any length of time, you probably know that for a long time there really was a “right side” and a “wrong side” of the tracks. And of course daddy and our family was on the wrong side. Yes there was a church up the street. A big one, with a pipe organ and nice wood paneling. But mill village people weren’t exactly encouraged to be there. That was okay by daddy.
But I’ll never forget going to a Braves game as a family in the middle 60’s I guess. We got there, and by the way, daddy wasn’t a baseball fan, that was mother, but when we got there daddy ordered a cold beer. It was Atlanta hot, we were in the sun, and I guess he figured what the heck. So he got this beer, took a couple of sips. I don’t think Bruce and I could have been any more surprised if the space station Mir had fallen into the infield. (That was something daddy worried about later) We were fascinated by that beer – the color, the foam, everything about it seemed cool.
Daddy must have noticed that. It was the last time we ever saw him drink a beer. And I don’t think he ever did.
See, when choices had to be made for the benefit of the people he loved, daddy never hesitated to make them, and they weren’t choices that added to his pleasure or to his ego – just the opposite. You might call that humility.
Here’s what I’m getting at with this. Daddy came to know he was a Christian at 65. But what about all those years that he was doing right things, loving mercy, and walking humbly? How close was he to God? See I wondering if there are a lot of people, just those guys, like daddy, who might be in their 20’s or 30’s, 40’s 50’s whatever that aren’t really that far away from God. That God has been watching, blessing with what my Presbyterian friends call “common grace” just so one day they’ll wake up and realize – “hey, God loves me”. “Hey, I cannot make it to Him on my own. Hey, I’m a sinner – I need a savior.” And because they have had all these seeds planted in their lives over a lifetime – because they have done right, loved mercy, and not cared about themselves, but spent their lives loving others more than themselves that maybe, just maybe, whatever age they are when it happens, they’ll turn to God and He’ll say, what took you so long? I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been here all the time.”
Maybe you know someone like that. Maybe you are someone like that. I believe Daddy was. It’s not too late, just turn and meet your God. He’s been there all the time.
Eugene Peterson translated that last phrase about “walking humbly…” as “don’t take yourself too seriously.” Daddy never did. He was, until the end, more concerned about others. He was concerned about Nita, and how she was doing. He wanted to know.
I said earlier we’d leave here this morning and there’d be no monuments or buildings to my father. I don’t think that would bother daddy at all. I watched a movie the other day again that I really don’t like to watch, I guess because it reminds me of daddy and what he and a lot of men and women went through in WW2. “Saving Private Ryan”. If you remember it’s about a team led by Tom Hanks who is sent to find Pvt. Ryan, the last surviving brother of four. Hanks finds him but is mortally wounded in that. He tells Ryan before he dies “earn this.” That haunts Ryan all his life.
The movie shows Ryan many years later walking among gravestones in Normandy with his family – wife, sons, daughters and grandchildren. They are happy to be with their daddy where he fought. Ryan finds Hank’s character’s tombstone and breaks down and asks his wife “tell me I lived a good life. Tell me I mattered.”
I’m here to tell you that though there may not be anything on Google, that there won’t be any monuments to my father’s life – it mattered. He mattered.
I am proud to be a Wilson. To wear that name. And his values, his example will live on in us – my brother Bruce and me, in our children, and their children. And our challenge after being given such a great gift as the life of Wiley Wilson is to earn it. Each and every day.
Let’s pray.
When I read the Bible, I sometimes come away confused.
Confused because I think that if I was THERE, living out the life of one of the people whose name is recorded on the pages - someone like Peter, or John - that I would be able to bring the story to greater heights and far more effectiveness.
Why?
Because I would GET IT.
See I have this tendency to look over the shoulder of someone like John and mutter, "you idiot. How can you see Jesus do these things over and over and still be so stoooopid. If I was there, I'd be putting up some parchment posters "Come see the Messiah. Bring the hurt, the injured, the broken-hearted. Their time has come."
I'd make it happen, because I can add. One dead son restored to his Mom = Son of God active RIGHT NOW! or one guy running around naked as a jaybird, cutting himself and throwing himself into the fire, meets Jesus, becomes whole, is healed = Messiah IS HERE - RIGHT NOW! FOLLOW HIM! LEAVE YOUR OLD LIFE AND COME! NOW!
Yeah, if I was there, I'd straighten those guys out. Cause I KNOW.
Well here's where I fall before God this morning, pleading for mercy and grace.
i know
and yet, I am silent...
far too often.
I assume, or pretend, or (to put the best possible spin on) I hope that the person with me at that moment knows.
but
what if
they don't.
Then we pick up the paper and turn to the obits, and read their name.
Who knew?
no...
who cared?
Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Christ have mercy.
Here are some lyrics from the late Mark Heard, a fellow Maconite who understood.
There's an oasis in the heat of the day
There's a fire in the chill of night
A turnabout in circumstance makes each a hell in its own right
I've been boxed-in in the lowlands, in the canyons that think
I've been pushed to the brink of the precipice and dared not to blink
I've been confounded in the whirlwind of what-if's and dreams
I've been burned by the turning of the wind back upon my own flames
Speak words of hope into lives of quiet desperation. Tell of the One who gave you life - again. Let them know there is another path away from selfishness and greed toward sacrifice and significance.Knock the scales from my eyes
Knock the words from my lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue
Remember beloved, it's only good news if they hear it in time.
Grace!
David Wilson
It is the week after the latest Harry Potter book came out. Many of us have read it already from cover to cover, enjoying a wild ride of fantasy. As a young boy, I read every Superman comic I could plead for, later enjoyed the works of Mark Twain, and others who took me to places and times I'll never inhabit - except through their prose.
As a pastor, over the years I have received different responses from people about the Harry Potter series when they found out I had read them all. And at times I've had questions from parents about whether their children should read them - those questions coming not because of what they knew personally about them, but what they had heard.
Well after finishing the last of the Harry Potter series, I'm not sure that as time goes by we might see theologians treating the books and their author much more kindly. For in this book I found words I have always treasured in the most uncommon places.
When Harry ventures back home to where his parents are buried, he comes across the gravestone of his mentor Dumbledore's mother and sister. The Mother was killed trying to protect the daughter from herself, and later the daughter died too. On the gravestone were these words.
This of course comes from Christ's words in Matthew
19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
20 But
store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not
destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For
where your
treasure is, there
your heart will be also.
Matt 6:19-21 (NIV)
Then Harry finds himself at the graves of
his parents, who both died trying to protect him from an evil wizard,
and the reader sees these words on their monument.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Coming again from Scripture - 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
1 Cor 15:24-26 (ESV)
The themes of "the Greater Good", of sacrifice, of selflessness, of laying down your life for your friends run all through this last book. If you cannot see that, it's not that you have read too much fiction.
It's that you have read too little Scripture.
Reading for information isn't enough. You have to read the Bible with a sense of anticipation and wonder, relief and amazement that God - this God - the One and Only God - would sacrifice His One and Only Son - for you. And that through your love for Him, you would lay down your life for your friends - no matter what. You know you are flawed, but that He is able to use you to change lives for eternity. And you have to be convinced in your very soul that your life matters to God - that what you do matters. You have a part in the Big Story of God's reconciling the world to Himself.
If you can see that connection with your own life's walk, then
it will be easy to spot it wherever it appears in any variation whether
explicitly Christian or not - even in fictional books like the Harry
Potter series.
I'm grateful for J.K. Rowling's work, and the treasures I
found in The Deathly Hallows. But I'm immeasurably more grateful to the
God who through the sacrifice of His sinless Son, gave me freedom
from guilt and shame, a purpose for living, and the hope of eternal
life with Him, when death will be destroyed and love triumph over all.
Shalom,
David
Personally, I have just finished teaching the small group and would not use the material again in a church small group setting. Why? Simply because the book is largely devoid of any references or reliance on Scripture. Each week I would read the materials and reread the book, then preview the DVD. And each week I would have to search and find Scriptures that would at least point people in the direction of reliance on God, not on techniques of communication.
I do think there's a place for this. It would in general be helpful. But I would suggest that you work up your own handbooks, and spend a lot of time before and after the video placing the ideas and concepts into a Christ-centered setting. Otherwise you will walk away sometimes feeling you just left an Oprah taping instead of a small group designed in sum to bring people into a deeper walk together with Jesus. I do not doubt the sincerity and professional capabilities of the Parrott's at all. What they did was good. But if we seriously believe that our walk with Jesus should permeate every relationship and season every discussion, well, I think we'd see Scripture show up far more often than just the closing credits.
By the way, the most helpful part of the experience for Bunny and me, after the time of sharing with great friends during the study - was the online questionnaire. It was spooky how realistically it outlined our communication styles as well as proposed areas and practical principles to improve. I highly recommend it to any couple wishing to improve in that area.
How can I describe what happened today at New Hope?
It was Indescribable!
Perhaps the biggest crowd in the history of New Hope gathered for worship and to witness the wedding of our two dear ones - Robert Hughes and Jewel Cuchens.
On Amazing Grace Sunday, we experienced amazing grace.
I still keep seeing that gulf between where we were before God drew us to Himself through Jesus, and where we are now as His children, wholly and dearly loved.
We are His masterpiece. The word poema in the Greek. We get our word poem from it.
As a writer, I know how it feels to create something. You put yourself into it. The Bible says that God created us in His image, and created us anew in Jesus. So we are His proof to the world of His love.
It's Indescribable how great that should make us feel.
