FBC News - July 7, 2013

June 16, 2013
From the Pastor:
We have had a tremendous time this past week in
Vacation Bible School. I know Joyce will bring the update
this morning for the week, but I just want to say what a
good week it was and how well all of our workers did. For
many in our church family, the decorations alone tell us
about this special week. Many, many others got engaged
in some way, from registration and meals to leading a
group of children. Every worker is essential, and I was
impressed with how every worker took seriously what
they were doing and saw opportunities that were eternal
in nature. One of the dangers of VBS is that we can see it
just as a nice thing we do for children in the Summer. It is
a nice thing we do, but it is so far beyond that. Children in
our city have the opportunity to hear of God's plan for
their lives, and the leaders offered Jesus to them in so
many different ways. Seeds were sown and I believe what
we have done will be used by God ultimately to change
lives and eternities. To Joyce, to all who served in VBS,
I want to say "Well done!" Ultimately that is what God
asks of us, to use what talents, to use what abilities, to use
what opportunities we have to impact others. You have
done that with spirit and heart and determination -- well
done! Now is the follow-up phase of Vacation Bible
School, where we as a church family make contact with
children and their families. I hope you will want to be a
part of that -- if you don't know how, talk to Joyce about
the opportunities before us.
* * * * *
2013 Zambia Shoebox Harvest Distribution
The 2013 Zambia Shoebox Harvest Distribution was
“Immeasurably More” than anyone could have imagined.
You are invited to learn more about how God is using the
shoebox gifts to bring “Good News; Great Joy” to the
children of Zambia as Janice Hartinger shares her story on
June 30, 2013 at 6:00 pm, FBC, Rolla.
Operation Christmas Child
National Collection Week is
November 18-25, 2013
Deacon of the Week: Paul Hefley
Van Driver for June: Laura Petru
Head Usher for June: James Crump
Flowers
The flowers today are given by David and Ruth Allen, in
celebration of their 51st wedding anniversary on June 9.
CALENDAR
SUNDAY, JUNE16
Father’s Day
Prayer/Bro. Bob/Searcher’s Rm . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8:30 am
Bible Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9:00 am
Morning Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10:30 am
No Evening Activities so all may enjoy time
with your families.
TUESDAY, JUNE 18
Health Walk in M/C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8:30-10:00 am
Staff Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11:00 am
Hard Core Music Concert-Youth in M/C . . . . . 6:30 pm
Dickerman Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7:00 pm
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19
Health Walk in M/C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8:30-10:00 am
Youth-“The Edge” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6:00 pm
Mid-Week Bible Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6:15 pm
Chancel Choir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7:00 pm
THURSDAY, JUNE 20
Health Walk in M/C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8:30-10:00 am
Bridal Shower for Alicia Whitaker in FH . . . . . 6:30 pm
SATURDAY, JUNE 22
Josh Boland “Almost Home” Concert at FBC . . 5:00 pm
SUNDAY, JUNE 23
Prayer/Bro. Bob/Searcher’s Rm . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8:30 am
Bible Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9:00 am
Morning Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10:30 am
Jr. Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10:45 am
Property & Space Comm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5:00 pm
Deacon’s Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5:00 pm
Outreach & Evangelism Comm. . . . . . . . . 5:00 pm
Evening Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6:00 pm
Youth-“Shine” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6:00 pm
Bridal Shower
Please join us for a
Bridal Shower in honor of
Alicia Whitaker
Thursday, June 20
6:30 p.m.
Fellowship Hall
Registries at
Target & Amazon.com
The Great Give-Away
2013 is Coming!
Cleaning out closets, storage areas,
garages, etc. this summer?
Donate those items to the “The Great Give-Away”!
Gently used and new items are welcomed.
Ask your friends and neighbors
to donate items, too!
* * *
Mark you calendar for Saturday, September 21 and
plan to be involved in this ministry
to our community.

Hudson

If anything merits a blog it is the birth of a grandchild.

Hudson Christopher Johns was born on June 15th to my daughter Alyssa and son-in-law Paul.  Holly and I wasted very little time jumping a flight to Arizona.  It has been an amazing week, and I find it difficult to voice what it feels like to be a grandparent – as so many of you told me, there is nothing quite like it.

It has been a joy to bounce Hudson around and to watch my daughter and son-in-law take those first steps of parenthood.  They are doing well, supporting and encouraging each other, and experiencing all the variety of issues that go with having a newborn.  I am proud of them both.

Something unexpected for me was sharing some of the anxiety parents of newborns feel when you ask all those beginning questions: “Is he doing okay?  Is he eating enough?  Why is he crying?”  And the question we with experience already know the answer to – “Will life ever be the same again?”

Simple, black and white answer – “No!”

I read recently that having a child is an act of faith and an act of defiance.  An act of faith in that it expresses the belief that God can bring something good and pure and beautiful into this world.  An act of defiance in that parents refuse to let some of the scary things of this world have the final say – they dare, with courage, bring a child into this world, believing this child can not only change their lives but the lives of others.

At one point in my adulthood my Mom told me she prayed for me everyday.  I found comfort in that – if no one else prayed for me, Mom did.  Her prayers ceased long ago as she went to her heavenly home, but I continue her practice.  I seldom miss a day when I do not pray for my children Alyssa and Chad, and years ago I added to my daily prayer their spouses Paul and Becki.

Now with joy I add Hudson to the list.

Anytime Now...

I had a dream last night about babies being born – no wonder, both my daughter Alyssa and my daughter-in-law Becki are pregnant, and Alyssa is due anytime now.  We have our bags packed so we can fly out to Phoenix at a moment's notice (or whenever we can get a flight), and if we had the Star Trek technology my wife would have transported there already. 

Our first grandchild (a boy), coming anytime now.

I am finding it a strange feeling to live with the “anytime now” sense of things.  Will the call come in the morning hours, the afternoon, or when we have dozed off to sleep at night?  My wife does not like to carry her cell phone around, but I discovered this past Sunday that she not only had it in her pocket at church but had it turned on as well, “on vibrate” she said.  “Why?” I asked.  She said, “In case Alyssa calls telling us the baby is on the way.”  I said to her, “Alyssa would leave a message for us.”  And my wife looked at me with eyes like I have seldom seen in our thirty-seven years of marriage, eyes that said I had just failed the supreme test of being a father.  

“I think you should continue to keep your cell on” I wisely said.

“Anytime now” – I guess lots of things can happen on that kind of timetable, things that bring us joy like having a child or a grandchild, and a number of things that can make us sad or break our hearts.  But I am on the joyful side right now – our first grandchild coming “anytime now.” 

My sermon text for this Sunday is Psalm 139.  The Psalmist is both filled with wonder and fear as he reflects on the presence of God.  To God the Psalmist is an open book – before he can get his train of thought going, God knows, and God can even complete his sentences.  What overwhelms the Psalmist is the intricate involvement in our lives – God as the Creator, making us and shaping us before our mothers felt our first kick in the womb or heard our first cry.  The Psalmist says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” – and I praise God that He has been at work in the life of my daughter, fearfully and wonderfully making a life within her, her first child, my first grandchild.

Anytime now...

Passion Sunday

The Sunday before Easter is known both as Palm Sunday and as Passion Sunday.  Over the years our worship service on this Sunday at First Baptist tends to move from the joyful triumphal entry to the passion reflected on the cross.  Such was the case in the message I preached today.  I shared a brief bit of prose entitled “Friday” from Calvin Miller’s The Book of Jesus that I have always found haunting. Let me repeat it here, for your further reflections:

On with Friday's grisly business!
Let the broad arm raise the sledge!
Let the hammer ring out upon the nails.
I must not flinch with the crimson flows—
He's only a carpenter—a craftsman who claimed too much.
"I need a black nail, soldier."
Give me your hand, carpenter.  What a strange man you are!  You stretch 
forth your hand too eagerly— too willingly, as though I was going to shake it, 
not nail it to a tree.
Steady, man.  The first stroke of the hammer is easiest for me and 
hardest for you.
For me the first blow meets only the resistance of soft flesh.
The hardwood beneath drives much slower.
For you the first blow is the worse.
It brings the ripping pain and the bright gore.
The wood beneath your wrist does not feel and bleed as you do.

So many depictions of the suffering of Jesus reflect the physical pain of the Savior.  The truth of the matter is that the agony of physical suffering paled in comparison to the internal agony and hell our Lord experienced as He bore the sins of humanity.  I can not comprehend that – all I can do is thank God for this kind of love.

One thing that captures my attention in Calvin Miller’s presentation is the statement of the soldier nailing Jesus to the cross – “Give me your hand, carpenter.  What a strange man you are!  You stretch forth your hand too eagerly – too willingly, as though I was going to shake it, not nail it to a tree.”  Such an image makes me thing of what Jesus said in John 10:17 –“I lay down my life – only to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.”

No one took Jesus’ life from Him – He gave up His life.  He thrust out His hand to be nailed to the cross.  Surely it was His love that held His hands in place.  Strange indeed, when you consider He did this for you and me...

Lost and Found

Some weeks are easy to get lost in – this was one of those weeks for a variety of reasons I won’t go into.  Regardless, in the midst of the week I found something – a passage in a book that I had marked long ago and had forgotten.  It gave me much to think about, and my discovery of the passage made me realize that perhaps this had not been so much a “lost” week as a “life-shaping” week.  Let me share the passage with you – it comes from Henri Nouwen’s book The Genesee Diary:

“Did I really live my life or was it lived for me?  Did I really make the decisions that led me to this place at this time, or was I simply carried along by the stream, by sad as well as happy events?...”

“I don’t believe that my life is a long row of randomly chained incidents and accidents of which I am not much more than a passive victim.  No, I think that nothing is accidental but that God molded me through the events of my life and that I am called to recognize his molding hand and praise him in gratitude for the great things he has done to me.”

“I wonder if I really have listened carefully enough to the God of history, the God of my history, and have recognized him when he called me by my name, broke the bread, or asked me to cast out my nets after a fruitless day?  Maybe I have been living too fast, too restlessly, too feverishly, forgetting to pay attention to what is happening here and now, right under my nose.”

Feeling lost?  Try listening...

There's No Place Like Home

First Baptist Church of Rolla enjoys our connections with internationals and we try to give them a taste of life in America.  Someone came up with the idea that we ought to show them a classic film – one that had stood the test of time.  We decided to show them The Wizard of Oz. 

I thought that was an interesting idea and wondered how they might receive it.  I have all these memories of this film, first as a child and then as a parent watching the film with my children.  I was always in a hurry to leave Kansas and get to Oz.  I don’t know if that says as much about the state as it does my love for fantasy, but I did love the change from black and white to color, and I couldn’t wait until the Munchkins emerged from their hiding place and the wicked witch made her appearance in a plume of red smoke. 

The internationals seemed to enjoy the movie, and I realized that the film hooks all kinds of images and feelings for us.  As children we have our share of fears in the dark – witches and graveyards and flying monkeys, to say nothing about lions and tigers and bears (Oh my!).  In the movie Dorothy and her friends go to the Wizard to solve their problems, and eventually they discover the Wizard is a fraud, using smoke and mirrors to create his own brand of fear.  He can’t really give a brain, nor grant a heart, or inspire courage – of course, each of the characters receive those things on their journey the way we do, by learning and gaining compassion and realizing that courage only comes in the midst of fear.  The ineptitude of the Wizard is exposed when it comes to Dorothy – his bungling attempt to get her back to Kansas ends with stranding her in Oz.  That’s okay, for it turns out that she has always had the ability to return to Kansas, once she could click her heels and voice the lesson of the film, “There’s no place like home.”  A few of the internationals voiced that phrase several times – they were homesick.  One international said, “No, I’d rather be here.” 

That was Friday evening – on Saturday morning I spent some time in Revelation 4 & 5.  The scene there reminded me of Oz but with significant differences.  Angelic creatures that might in some other setting be frightening voiced their praise of God.  Creation bowed before the heavenly throne, and though I imagine smoke rose, it was not smoke and mirrors.  The power and might of God was not a fraud, and God created a reverent kind of fear wrapped up in the gratitude of a thankful, redeemed humanity.  “Worthy is the Lamb” the multitude of heaven cried out, making it clear that Jesus had accomplished what no one else could do:  through His blood He gave us a new heart, a different way of thinking, and the confidence and courage that He has overcome all that we fear. 

Best of all, He has a better place waiting for us than Kansas or Oz.  There's no place like the home God has for us.

Snow

When I first began to pastor, I served a rural church out by itself on a lonely blacktop road in Tennessee.  Snow was something that just didn’t happen much, and then one year that all changed.  We went through a series of what we came to call “wicked Wednesdays” and “sinister Sundays”.  We called off one worship service after another and prayed for Spring to come.

It was about that time that I discovered an interesting passage in the book of Job.  After a flurry of comments and arguments by Job and his fickle friends, God breaks the silence.  He overwhelms Job with question after question, basically convincing Job that he (nor any other human being) could ever understand all that God is up to.  There comes a time when you just have to trust that God is at work even if everything seems to scream that He is not involved.

In that kind of context God asks Job, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?” (Job 38:22-23). We have storehouses of salt to melt the snow, and God has storehouses of snow and hail – quite an image.  And it is an image – God is trying to help us understand that which is beyond our understanding, and so He calls upon us to look at snow as a way He combats – what?  He reserves these storehouses of snow and hail for times of trouble, for days of war and battle – what does that mean?

As I looked out my study window this week with the snow falling, I was intrigued by how everything had come to a halt.  We go ninety-to-nothing most of the time, and then a little thing like a snow flake stops it all.  Mighty eighteen wheelers slip and slide, and as the snow accumulates, we get stuck inside.  We talk about getting cabin fever, about going stir crazy, and about being bored.  Interestingly enough, some families reconnect, bake cookies, play board games, find new ways to entertain themselves.  We may pray for a sunny day, and we find ourselves longing for Spring.

In it all, I wonder if the battle being fought isn’t for our souls.  We squeeze God out with our busyness, we think we are so powerful with our technology, we believe nothing can stop us – and then a snow flake wakes us up.  A thin layer of ice reminds us of our own instability and frailty.  Being stuck inside forces us to acknowledge our dependency.  God doing battle, God waging a war, gently reminding us that He is God and we are far more frail than we will admit.

Maybe we need more snow.