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The Church's One Foundation (Guest Post) - Kevin Anderson

August 29, 2017

A few posts ago, I put links to other clergy in the Central Texas Conference who are doing some blogging. I have invited these folks to be a guest contributor on this blog. This blog is not a huge platform but large enough to share and so over the course of the next few weeks I invite you to hear (and even follow) other clergy voices around this Conference. Here is a guest post from Cory Moses - Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.

Our family has started a nightly routine where all of us journal for a few minutes each day. Kathy, Carson, and I write and Courtney draws pictures, and then we all talk about our day and how we felt about the day. I was reading scripture and came across this passage from 1 Corinthians 3:

"For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ."

Carson was confused by what this verse meant so I explained it through the story of the three little pigs and how the pig who built his house out of brick is the one whose house survived because it has a strong foundation. This verse reminds me of a hymn about the nature of the church: The Church's One Foundation. The hymn starts with this line: "The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord; she (the church) is his new creation by water and the Word."

When we talk about our own faith and our own church we must begin with a foundation of Jesus Christ. If we do not begin with that then we have already lost. We can serve, we can work together to build the church but if we don't have a foundation of Jesus Christ then we will not succeed and we will not prevail. Christ's church was created centuries ago and as generations have come along people build upon that foundation. Sometimes aspects have to be rebuilt and sometimes thinks have to be re-invisioned but the foundation must stay the same. Christ must be at the center of all the church does, period. We must choose how to build and we must do it carefully with a mindset to be Christlike. A mindset that takes into account the life, the ministry, the death, and the resurrection of Christ. We must be of the same mind as Christ and be willing to learn, to teach, and to sacrifice for others at various times. If we don't then our church is going to be left blown away by signs of trouble.

This weekend there were signs of trouble in our country as events unfolded in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can call it want you want: white nationalist or white supremacist or racist but what is unmistakeable is that it sought to minimize others who are not like those who were protesting. Call it what is is, it's evil and just a reminder that hate and evil exist in our world. And sadly I am reminded of that each and every day.

So how do we move forward? It's about knowing and speaking what is right and what is wrong and what happened in Charlottesville was wrong. But we do know that storms come and will continue to come. If you don't believe me then believe Jesus. At the end of his sermon on the mount in Matthew 7:24-28 Jesus says these words:

"Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell-and great was the fall."

Jesus never said living out the gospel would be easy. And sometimes it isn't easy. I rewrote my sermon this weekend to speak about what happened in Virginia because even by not saying something we say something and something needed to be said. There were people who lost their lives because they wanted to peacefully protest something that was wrong. They stood against people who sought to divide. You see, Jesus knew storms would come and would continue to come. And He knows there are those who will take heed of his words and listen and there are those who won't. When storms come we better have and better be prepared to stand on a strong foundation and listen to Jesus words. Our foundation must be built on nothing less than the gospel of Jesus Christ. A gospel of love and acceptance. Not a gospel of anger, hatred, and intolerance.

Spend some time in scripture today. In particular spend some time reading the stories of Jesus and his gospel of love and acceptance. And I pray that you (that all of us) will be more like Christ today than yesterday and everyday moving forward.

Grace & Peace
Kevin

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (Guest Post) - Cory Moses

August 20, 2017

After a very enlightening visit to the dentist a few months ago, we were overjoyed to discover that Caroline (6 yrs) has a few of her baby teeth that are hosting a nasty cavity or 2 and it was going to mean fillings. So, a few weeks ago, we decided to up the anteof tooth care and add mouthwash to the girls’ nightly bed time ritual of homework, showers, and brushing teeth.

For Cadence (8 yrs), it was pretty easy going….for those of you that know Caroline, you know that very little with her is easy going. We tell people that our girls’ personalities match their hair. Cadence has straight brown hair, which means she is fairly laid back. She really likes to be in bed by 8:30, and by 9:00 she begins to get very anxious about it being so late and then proceeds to go to sleep pretty quick. Caroline, on the other had has curly blonde hair, and I’m pretty sure if we had had her first, we would have stopped there. I’m reminded of an episode of her getting ready for preschool a few years ago. After being told she couldn’t wear her special, ruby red, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, church shoes to school, it resulted in a rolling on the floor, you’ve ripped my arms off catastrophe with repeated shouts of “I won’t be beautiful.” So, needless to say, introducing something new like mouthwash, something you and I might find commonplace, for Caroline was in fact the end of the world.

What started out as a small conflict of want vs. need, quickly shifted to a titan battle of wills that I refused to lose…but of course so did she. She was hysterically terrified of this idea of mouthwash. We explained how to do it, we both demonstrated how you take a little in your mouth, swash it around to wash all of your teeth, and then spit it out. We even bought children’s bubble gum flavor! She was not having. Caroline could not in any way move beyond the crippling fear that she could accidentally swallow the mouthwash and then it would make her sick or even worse.

After a couple of hours of my wife and I tag teaming the grudge match, we finally decided the levelof Caroline’s hysteria had moved far beyond any chance of this being a fruitful venture and decided to let her calm down. Then we tried to discussed with her in detail about the alleged poison and let her go to bed with the promise we would try again the next night. (Which we did by the way and she was surprisingly immune to the arsenic laced substance.)

As she was beginning to calm down, I went into her room to try to console her and have a more rational conversation about the nights events. I scooped her upand held her in my lap amidst the sobs and whimpers and asked her, “Caroline, don’t you know that mommy and daddy love you?” Yes. “Don’t you know that mommy and daddy would never do any thing, or ask you to do anything that would ever hurt you?” Yes. “Then what are you afraid of?” “I might swallow it.”

Caroline’s fear of the the unknown, of taking the step to follow what Katie and I were asking her to do (which was undoubtedly for her own good, and for the health of her teeth) had nothing to do with her questioning our love for her. She in no way thought that we would ever intentionally harm her or ask her to do something that would harm her. Her fear stemmed from a lack of trust in herself. She was terrified that her own body would somehow betray her and inadvertently swallow this substance that in her mind could harm her.

Caroline didn’t trust herself or her body. For example, when a bird lands on a tree branch I wonder if the little bird lands on the tree branch trusting that the branch is not going to break, or does the bird have trust that the wings that carried him to branch can carry him to safety if the branch does break?

Many times, our God calls us into the unknown, and many times our fear cripples us from answering the call. Our typical indictment is that we simply do not trust that God can carry us through that which we are called. However, in this line of thinking, we sell ourselves (and that which our Sovereign has created) short. Our God created us, and our bodies. These shells, mortal as they may be host a myriad of complex and fascinating systems and mechanics; not to mention the amazing gifts and graces that God has bestowed out of love for us. I tend to believe that if God is calling us to something it is because God has gifted and graced us with the skills and abilities to achieve that call. Does that mean that we can always see that? No, and that is why often times with don’t answer the call. We don’t trust ourselves, and all that God has created in us.

So, today is a word of encouragement. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 states that we are God’s craftsmanship. Other translations use the word, “masterpiece.” Now this particular verse is in a much longer discord with the Church at Ephesus where the Author is proclaiming a great message of hope to the readers. Because of their response to the Gospel, they are now experiencing a radical transformation of their personal and social identity. For the Author, they are in a way, being resocialized into God’s purposes and family. But, I think it can also speak to this same notion. God created us…. God knows us, and if God is calling us to it, then it must be because God has already created or is creating the tools needed.

The Psalmist echoes this idea in celebration of God’s work in them. So, I close with the words of Psalm 139: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful…

Thanks be to God!

MY Ever Changing Bio (Guest Post) - Matt Ybañez

August 18, 2017

In the midst of a career change from Youth Ministries to Missions and Evangelism here at the church, I find myself rewriting my bio on the church website. Hopefully by the time you’re reading this, the new bio is up and the old one is gone . . . because as more and more time passed, and as I continually put off updating it, it continued to grow more and more outdated. It was so out of date that the last line originally read that I was in a Christian fraternity in college until at some point in the last 6 years, someone went in and added to my bio, “They have two daughters.”

Since I wrote it in 2006, Aimee and I have had two children, and I’ve packed away a lot of life experience, both personally and professionally. While the story of who I am hasn’t changed much, my understanding of who I am and what are the most significant, life-shaping events that are church-website-bio-worthy has changed a lot. My experience as a Schlitterbahn lifeguard is not as relevant as it used to be. My identity as a father was non-existent, but now fatherhood is a lens through which I see almost everything.

There was a time when I thought I’d be a youth minister for all of my working life. My experience of youth was so formative that I wanted to give back and serve in the same place that had shaped me, yet as my own life continued to take shape, my strengths and passions emerged with more clarity and I felt God’s call on my life evolve and take shape into something different.

God’s call on our lives is not a singular, static assignment. Fred Buechner writes that vocation, from the latin vocare, literally means “that which you are called by God to do.” He asserts that our vocation, our calling, lies at the intersection of our greatest passions and the world’s deepest hungers. Over our lives, our strengths and passions may not shift dramatically (not to say that they can’t). The needs of the world are always changing and evolving and I believe that God continually meets us where we are, which means that the way God calls us can’t be a static singular call, but a dynamic, moving target. Sure, the words may never change–”Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself,” but my heart and mind have grown. My neighbors, our neighbors, are not the same neighbors we had 10 or 50 years ago, and as God draws the world ever closer towards the kingdom of God, we too are called to deepen the ways we live as followers of Jesus.

The keyword there is “follower.” To follow, necessarily incites movement and change. The church (both universally and we specifically) is not always the best at navigating change. The very purpose of an institution is to preserve the structures that have served us well in the past, but the great pitfall in the life of the church is that we tend to want to live in the past. We stand at a unique point in Christian history: the onset of post-Christendom. All that means is that most of the people in our community are not going to church like they did 50 or 100 years ago, and we cannot stand on the steps of the church shouting out to the world, “Come in here to meet God!” because God is already present and working in the lives of the people around us. We, the church, must follow Jesus out into the world lest we become outdated.

As I embrace my new journey, I’m excited to see how God will continue to invite us into new ways of being the church.

Dunkirk and the Power of Story (Guest Post) - Mark Winter

August 16, 2017

I recently caught Dunkirk, the Christopher Nolan movie that tells the story of the daring rescue of Allied soldiers in the early days of World War II. When Nazi Germany invaded France in May 1940, they began to push English, Belgian and French forces to the sea. The British Expeditionary Force made the decision to evacuate the troops near Dunkirk, on the northern shore of France. Some naval ships were dispatched, but officers were not willing to risk the entire fleet to marauding German bombers and prowling U-boats. The evacuation began at a painfully slow pace, but when the word got out of the dire situation, civilian sailors came to the rescue.

A flotilla of yachts, fishing boats, motorcraft and merchant marine ships braved the mine-infested waters of the English Channel to make the 30-mile voyage to Dunkirk. When the evacuation began, Churchill was hoping that 30,000 men could be ferried back to safety. By June 4, 1940, over 338,000 soldiers had been evacuated. The prime minister hailed the operation as a “miracle of deliverance.”

I grew up hearing war stories from my dad, who was a B-17 copilot. When he told me about the Dunkirk evacuation, I remember how impressed I was. It was a personal lesson in bravery: ordinary men risking their property and lives to save soldiers whom they didn’t know.

Of course, I knew the outcome of the story before I sat down in the theater to watch the movie. Still, the masterful storytelling of Nolan grabbed me from the start. As my oldest son, who caught the flick before me, remarked, “I paid for my entire seat, but only used the edge of it.”

Once again I am reminded of the power of story to stir mind and soul. I would venture to say that most Westerners know the story of Jesus. They know that He taught ethics in the Sermon the Mount. They have heard that He gathered 12 disciples, who were to carry out His mission. And most everyone knows the most crucial elements of this story, that Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and raised on Easter Sunday.

Yet even the Greatest Story Ever Told can be told as “old hat.” How many preachers drone in the pulpit every week as if this tale were as exciting as a shopping list? How many folks turn off the story in their heads when it starts to be repeated, unconsciously believing that it has nothing new or powerful to say?

The Gospel must be told in fresh, dynamic, heart-gripping ways. That’s why I do what I do: embody the story in dramatic fashion. It seems to grab attention, including that of children and the hard-to-impress teenager. Drama is not the only way to tell the Gospel story, of course. The church has many creative channels at its disposal, including poetry, sculpture, dance, art, music, photography and film. Jesus Himself used creative arts when He taught spiritual truth in parable form.

Perhaps the greatest tool at our disposal is our own passion for the Story. Do you believe the Gospel is the “power of God unto salvation”? (Romans 1:16). Then tell or show it in your own way – but do it compellingly, remembering that this Story has changed (and is still changing) you.

There are an estimated 2.2 billion Christians in the world. That’s over two billion stories reflecting the One Story that binds us together. And that leaves over 5 billion who need to hear, see and experience the Story for themselves.

It’s up to us.

It’s up to you.

How will you tell the Story today?

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