Fall is Here!

As I write this, we have officially entered the season of Fall.  We did so yesterday, September 23, 2007.  I have to say of all the seasons of the year this one is probably my favorite.  When I was only about five or six years old I lived in Germany and went to a school setup for children from military families.  During the day I walked to a trailer for special education to help me with my speech and I still remember the smell of wet leaves on the sidewalk.  I always thought they smelled sweet.  Although I have had people tell me I am crazy.  Maybe it’s just the German leaves that smell sweet.  (Chocolate flows pretty freely in Germany).

My daughter, Chelsey, in her science class has been learning about the cells, and how different cells have different shapes, sizes and functions.  She compared animal cells to plant cells and learned about how leaves change their color in the fall.  It has to do with the loss of chlorophyl due in part to less hours of sunlight.

 But the amazing thing of all this to me is that God did this.  That God created the world and all of the intricate functions that plants, and animals, and even humans have working in them.  I just find it hard to believe that someone can study the ways in which leaves fall from the tree and still argue that God does not exist.

 My challenge to you:  take some time, embrace Fall, drive somewhere and enjoy the beauty that surrounds you, and remember, God when He had finished creating all that He had made, said, “It is good.”

May It Be So . . .

Last week, August 7-9, I spent at Manville Camp, Manville Illinois.  It was the 59th Annual District Assembly.  On Thursday morning I listened to a 90 minute presentation about our MST team (formerly the NRR task force).  It was an awesome presentation about the churches that have been planted and will be planted all across our district and the people being reached through these new churches.  In order to help us remember the new name MST (Mission Strategy Team) we all received cans of Sierra Mist (take out the i and you have MST).  As this presentation was being made there was just such a sense of anticipation of what God was going to do.

I got home late Thursday night and unloaded most of the stuff from my truck and went to bed.  On Saturday, I asked my daughter Chelsey to go out and get some things from my truck that I needed in my office.  When she came back, she said, “You’re truck is full of water.  All over the inside windows and everything water is just everywhere.”  Having no idea why I would have water on the inside of my truck I went out to look it over and see what had happened.

 Now, pay careful attention to this next part.  One of the items I had left in my truck on Thursday night was a certain Sierra Mist can.  You know, the one I got on Thursday morning.  Apparently even though the temperature outside has been very hot for these days in August in central Illinois, the Sierra Mist can exploded and the water my daughter had seen was actually soda.  (Can someone explain to me how a soda can explodes like this?  And no, it wasn’t shaken either.)  It was an act of God.

Anyway as I took the soda can (pictured above) out of my truck and looked at it, I thought, what if God would do this to the churches on our district this year.  What if all churches this year would explode with new people coming to know Jesus? What if our churches saw God at work in such a dynamic way that every pastor next year at annual report time could say, “We don’t have time to tell you about all the people we saw making decisions for Jesus Christ.”?  I think it would be awesome and I say, may it be so.

Life is Bittersweet

Back and forth.  Back and forth.  That pretty well sums up the past several weeks in our home.  Any number of times now, Kolaya and I have gone to the doctor and then to the hospital and finally returned home.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.  Now, however, as Kolaya is nearing the end of the pregnancy she is in the hospital to stay (at least until the baby is born).  That’s what is making life for us bittersweet.  The longer the baby stays in the womb, the healthier and stronger he grows.  However, the longer he stays in, the longer Kolaya has to be in the hospital.  Now we both want a healthy baby but we also both want for her to be at home, so life is bittersweet.

Another bittersweet moment has taken place as I have continued to work and run errands in my community.  As Kolaya has been in and out of the hospital for sometimes extended stays, people have frequently stopped me to ask about her.  When I picked up my kids report cards on the last day of school, two or three different people asked about her status.  When I went to the drugstore for a prescription refill, two or three people asked how she was doing.  When I go to the little league games or get a phone call from the coaches, someone will inevitably ask, “Hey, how is Kolaya?”  That, of course, doesn’t include our church family that frequently calls both her and me to get an update.  It is just awesome to know that so many people are thinking of us and caring for us enough to take the time to ask.  It’s bittersweet because while we would rather she wasn’t in the hospital, we have people who have surrounded us with care and concern.

This circle of concern for Kolaya and our family has been a remarkable chance for me to reflect on the image of the church.  For as I think of the people caring for us, I realize that there are others who hurt and wonder if anyone really cares.  This is one of the crucial issues of the church, to care.  To love one another and to walk through the difficult times that will come to them.  I pray that our church will continue to be a community that embraces the other while they experience the joys and sorrows of life.  Whereever you are today, whether blessed or burdened, please know that our church longs to care for you and help you and even better, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”  (1 Peter 5.7)

From My Heart

The Problem of Evil

  Recently some friends of mine posted on their blog (http://evanandjulia.blogspot.com/) the age old question of why evil exists in this world.  It wasn’t quite stated that way but essentially that’s what they were asking.  Last summer I was in a reading frenzy and I picked up a book by a guy living in Namibia, Africa entitled, Ten Things I Wish Jesus Never Said.  One of the things that has interested me the most so far in reading this is the idea that  suffering is not something to be avoided for the Christian (as we often believe it ought to be) but rather understood as a sign of God’s care for us.  He spends an entire chapter devoted to this topic.  In a book on pain by Philip Yancey, Yancey notes that “books on pain can be neatly divided into two categories.  The older ones, by people like Augustine, Luther, Bunyan, and so on, ’ungrudgingly accept pain and suffering as God’s useful agents.’  The modern books on the topic move God to the position of a defendant who must answer to man for his inability to remove pain from our lives.”Now I’m not suggesting that you go and look for pain in your life today.  What I am suggesting is that rather than challenging God to only give us “good things”, that we begin to see that God is also at work in the “bad things”.  That suffering is God’s way of developing in us the kind of people we are     destined by Him to be.  Paul wrote in the letter to the Phillipians, “I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.”  and to the Romans he wrote, “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!God does love us and our experiences of suffering can sometimes be a way for Him to draw us closer to His best wishes for us.  So praise Him in whatever circumstance you find yourselves.  From my heart,Pastor Troy   

I Love The Church of the Nazarene

This week, if you are trying to find me, I am in Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky (as of this writing, Lexington), West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and back in Illinois.  I am currently in a “traveling” history class learning about my brothers and sisters in Christ from the Restoration Movement aka the Stone/Campbell Movement.  I am required to take this class because I am pursuing a degree at Lincoln Christian College and Seminary, a restoration school and this is one of the “have to” classes.  I could have taken it as a regular 16 week course but I liked the setup of this class much better. 

What I have learned during my time has made me grow to appreciate even more greatly my heritage in the Church of the Nazarene.  It has made me grow to appreciate history of the church in general a bit more and to want to grow in my understanding of the church I call home.  I have learned that I love the Church of the Nazarene and I am proud (in the right way, of course) to be a part of it (pimples and all).

 That doesn’t mean that I dislike these I have gotten to know but rather understand them as a part of the bigger family tree known as Christian or perhaps more appropriately stated, a part of the family of God, for I have come to appreciate that they have a role to play in calling us to be active in the world in an attempt to spread the word of God and to fulfill the Great Commission, in all of it’s aspects.  (Remember, the Great Commission is a call to share the Gospel with others but it is based in part on our recognition of the love of God that was freely given to us through the blood of Jesus Christ.)

 One more thing I have come to understand is that really all Christians in their different denominations are finite people trying to understand an infinite God, and in doing so, have developed systems that best fit their understanding of God but are so inadequate.  To quote my new friend Rupertus Meldenius (repeated by Dr. Phinehas Bresee, et. al) “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”

From my heart. 

Hello!

Thank you for stopping by and listening to my heart!  I look forward to sharing events and stories as they happen and as I share my heart with you.

Pastor Troy