It's always Thanksgiving

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.” (Psalm 136:1, New Living Translation)

As I write this article, we are preparing for our November 22^nd Annual Charge Conference and just beginning to plan for The Hanging of the Greens on November 28^th. Of course, this also means that Thanksgiving is coming – Thursday, November 25^th. We’ve got our Church Thanksgiving Dinner on Sunday, November 21^st and the Ministerial Alliance Community Worship Service that same evening. Whew! What a whirlwind this time of year seems to be. I hope you’ll check the calendar in this newsletter carefully and keep up with all the various activities coming up this month. We don’t want you to miss anything in the life of our church.

What is most important this time of year is that we all remember to give thanks to God “…in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) It is Thanksgiving time…Even though we should be thankful at all times…This is the time of year when we are most reminded to be thankful. The only challenge is that some of us may not feel very thankful right now. You may know someone who is out of work; you may be someone who is facing a major crisis; your family may be in turmoil; you may be grieving a terrible loss; or you simply may be looking at our culture and wondering how things could possibly get any worse. With all this pessimism, how can we begin to think about being thankful?

Gratitude is due our God regardless of our particular circumstances at this moment in time. We give thanks simply because God is good and faithful and his love for us is a warm embrace that continues even when we are depressed, or worried, or sad, or in pain. God’s loving embrace surrounds us precisely because we face the difficulties of our life; that’s really what the psalmist is talking about – God’s love is faithful and forever. God knows that we will always face adversity in this life and God promises to be here with us to help us through whatever the world throws at us. When we face problems at work, God is there to keep us calm and focused. If you’re looking for a job, God is leading you to the people and places you need to help you find the right opportunity. When we grieve the loss of a loved one, God is there to comfort us and help us to understand how life will be different, but not horrible after the loss. When we see all the bad things at work in the world, God shows us opportunities to serve as faithful witnesses and help to make this world a better place. Only God can do all these things in the midst of the huge obstacles we encounter every day. This is why giving thanks to the Lord is so important…God deserves our gratitude.

I recently read an article about gratitude and I was reminded that when we feel appreciated we tend to give more to the people appreciating us. If we learn to appreciate more of what we already have, we will find that we have more to appreciate. The things that we allow our minds to focus on tend to become the things that dominate our lives. If we focus on gratitude, our lives will become worth appreciating. If we focus on our problems, they will only multiply and grow. It is really basic investment strategy: If you invest your time and energy into something good, it will appreciate in value and you will find yourself surrounded by the dividends of this investment. Gratitude breeds gratitude; love breeds love; and smiles breed smiles.

We are so busy living our everyday lives that I think we forget about being alive. In our rush to pursue our goals, to get the kids to practices and games, to get the shopping done, to get ready for the holidays, and so on and on and on…We spend so much time rushing around that we forget to notice what we have in our lives for which we should be truly thankful. We have our very life, our families, our homes, and God’s good Creation – That’s a lot to say “thanks!” for right there. I’ll bet if you took a minute or two you could think of a whole list of things that bless your life that deserve your gratitude. I also believe that, no matter how bad your day gets, you can always think of someone who has it worse than you. For these we pray as we thank God for what we have.

Don’t let Thanksgiving Day be a once-a-year thing; make every day thanksgiving day and give thanks to God at all times and in all circumstances. That is God’s will for your life and we believe that God’s mercy and love endures forever.

God bless,
Pastor Don 

Not Worthy, But Welcome

“Not Worthy, But Welcome”
World Communion Sunday – October 3, 2010
TEXT: Luke 7:1-10; 1 Corinthians 11:17-26

There is a hymn I remember from childhood that we often sang before communion.
The words of the first verse are also a prayer that we were taught to remember and pray every time we got ready to receive Holy Communion.

“O Lord, I am not worthy that Thou should come to me;
but speak the words of comfort, my spirit healed shall be.”

Taken from Luke’s gospel, the words of this prayer express the humility with which we should approach the altar AND the faith that allows us to come to the altar in spite of our sin.

We are NOT worthy, but we ARE welcome!

Let us pray:

O Lord, I am not worthy
that Thou should come to me;
but speak the words of comfort,
my spirit healed shall be.

O Jesus, we adore Thee,
our Victim and our Priest,
whose precious Blood and Body
becomes our sacred Feast.

Lord, we come to you now seeking to better understand this Holy Mystery.

Guide our meditation; lead us in our learning,
help us to approach your altar with reverence, humility, and faith.

We are here in the Name of Jesus the Christ.

Amen.

“The story is told of a little girl whose parents had taken her forward to receive Holy Communion.

Disappointed with the small piece of bread she was given to dip in the cup, the child cried loudly, "I want more! I want more!"

While embarrassing to her parents and amusing to the pastor and congregation,
this little girl's cry accurately expresses the feelings of many contemporary United Methodist people.

We want more! We want more than we are receiving from the sacrament of Holy Communion
as it is practiced in our churches. “

This story is the opening of a document that was adopted by the 2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church entitled, “This Holy Mystery.”

This document contains the official United Methodist position on Holy Communion.

It is based on a survey taken in 2000, which revealed that there is a strong sense of the importance of Holy Communion in the life of Christians;

Unfortunately, there is an equally strong sense of any meaningful understanding of Eucharistic theology and practice in our churches.

Clergy and laity alike recognize that grace and spiritual power are available through the sacrament, but they do not feel enabled to receive these gifts and apply them in their lives.

For me, this represents a frustrating disconnect between the contemporary church and
the early New Testament church…

How can we profess to be “followers of Jesus Christ,” and yet not understand one of his most fundamental commands to us: “Do this in remembrance of me”?

We know that people have a deep hunger for the riches of divine grace,
for real communion with our Lord and Savior;

Yet, we fail to recognize that Holy Communion is the most concrete way we have of satisfying this hunger by remembering and encountering the Living Christ.

We have lost the passion for Holy Communion that inspired the early church to gather in secret, fearing for their lives, just so they could celebrate the Sacrament and remember what Jesus had done for them.

“It was a dark, foggy five o’clock in the morning and a thousand people were anxiously waiting for the doors of the cathedral to open.

Who were they?

Why were they there?

What were they anticipating?

The crowd was composed of a variety of people –
primarily working class people, but standing shoulder to shoulder with them were the educated and wealthy, the lords and ladies.

In a few moments they would be kneeling side by side at the Table of the Lord –
laborer and squire, uneducated and educated, maid and mistress –
recognizing that at this table all were equal.

It was the early Methodists flocking to receive the Sacrament of Jesus at their nearest Anglican Church.

The priests inside were overwhelmed at the size of the crowd and were hurriedly preparing more Communion elements.

What was it that the early Methodist people, like the people of the early Church, experienced in the sacrament that caused them on occasion, due to the crowds, to wait five or six hours to receive it?

History tells us that the eighteenth-century Methodist revival was a Eucharistic revival,” as was the revival prompted by Jesus in the First Century.

You see, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Movement, taught that Holy Communion should be received every day, if possible.

Holy Communion is a means of receiving God’s grace and we ought to avail ourselves of every possible opportunity to participate in the sacrament.

So how did we come to the practice of celebrating Holy Communion once a month or,
worse yet, once a quarter?

What has led so far astray from Christ’s command?

The story is told of a man who goes to the store to buy a ham for a large family gathering.

He wants to have plenty of food so he seeks out the largest and most beautiful ham he can find at the butcher shop.

He takes it home, proud of his purchase, and watches in horror as his wife promptly cuts off the end of this beautiful ham.

“Why did you do that?” he asks.

“Well, because my mother always did it that way,” the wife answered.

So, to solve this mystery, the wife calls her mother to ask why she always cut the end off of the ham. Her mother told her because her mother always did it that way.

So, the woman called her grandmother and asked her why it was necessary to cut the end off of the ham.

Grandma replied, “Well, I don’t know why you girls do it, but that was the only way I could get it to fit in my pan.”

Too often, we continue to do things the way they’ve always been done without bothering to find out why they’ve always been done a particular way.

So it is with our practice of quarterly or monthly communion…

When the early Methodists gathered, they believed that The Eucharist and preaching were inseparable.

They viewed Holy Communion as the central act of worship and celebrated the sacrament at every gathering.

They saw Holy Communion as an opportunity for persons to encounter Jesus and be converted to the faith; in fact, Susanna Wesley, John’s mother, was converted at The Lord’s Table.

John Wesley wrote that the Sacrament was “the grand channel whereby the grace of the Holy Spirit was conveyed to the souls of all the children of God.”

So, what happened to change all of this?

The Methodist Movement came to America and the ways of doing church changed…

In England there was always an Anglican priest available to bless and distribute the communion elements.

In America there was a shortage of clergy and the Circuit Rider system was born.

Clergy travelled from town to town, outpost to outpost, and many congregations would go for several weeks or months without an ordained clergy person in their midst.

These congregations continued to meet for worship and study, but they could not celebrate the Sacraments.

When the circuit riding preacher did come to town, he celebrated communion, baptized new converts, and performed weddings. These were tasks that only the clergy could perform and there simply weren’t enough clergy to be in all the places where Methodists were meeting.

One hundred years passed as this country grew and the Methodist Church began to put down roots in communities across the land.

Clergy began to be appointed to these churches and the need for the circuit riders diminished. However, too much time had passed and people didn’t remember the days of celebrating communion at every worship service.

Ultimately, the practice of the church became to celebrate monthly or quarterly communion simply because that’s the way we’ve always done it…

Trouble is, in the twenty-first century, nobody realized that the real reason for this practice was that the pan was too small.

The 2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church urged us to reclaim This Holy Mystery and restore it to its rightful place as the center of our worship.

The problem is that there is still a lot of misunderstanding about our sacramental theology and a resistance to changing our practice.

On this World Communion Sunday I am challenging you to open your hearts and minds to a renewed discussion of our sacramental heritage and to the possibility that we can re-discover an exciting means of receiving God’s grace in our lives.

That is why I began our discussion this morning with the “I am not worthy” text…

I believe that none of us is ever worthy of being in the presence of God;
we are all sinners – we all fall short of God’s glory.

That’s what makes communion so special for me…
It doesn’t matter how unworthy I am, Christ still invites me to His table.

I am welcome to encounter the presence of God in Holy Communion, no matter how unworthy I may feel, because God forgives me and His forgiving words heal my broken spirit…That’s a very special gift.

We need to look at Holy Communion within the larger context of United Methodist theology.

According to biblical and Christian teaching, we believe that we are sinners, constantly in need of God’s grace.

We believe that God is gracious and loving, always making available the grace we need.

Grace is God’s love toward us, God’s free and undeserved gift to us.

The grace of God is made available to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and it works in our lives through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

John Wesley described “means of grace” whereby God conveys Prevenient, Justifying, and Sanctifying grace to us…

These “means of grace” are:
the public worship of God
the ministry of the Word, either read or preached
Holy Communion
both public and private prayer

These means are not to be understood as ways of earning salvation;
rather, they are ways to receive, live in, and grow in divine grace.

Our Wesleyan tradition continues to emphasize the practice of these means of grace throughout our salvation process.

This morning I ask that you consider Holy Communion and what it truly means in the life of the church…This is the beginning of our re-awakening the Sacramental Mystery…

Holy Communion is an act of thanksgiving…
It is a way for us to praise God and express our thanks for His mighty acts throughout history…creation, covenant, redemption, and sanctification…
”Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever!”

Holy Communion is the communion of the church…
It is a celebration of the gathered community of believers, both here in our local church and throughout the world wherever Christians gather to celebrate the Eucharist, Christ is there also. “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

Holy Communion is a remembrance, a memorial…
This is a dynamic re-presentation of God’s past acts of salvation. It is also a celebration of the fact that Christ is risen, and is alive here and now, and is present in the Sacrament. This is not simply a remembrance of some past event.

Holy Communion has to do with the outcome of God’s purpose for the world…
“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” brings us into communion, not only with those present at the table with us today, but also with the saints who have gone before us. When we participate in Holy Communion we get a foretaste of God’s future Kingdom, a promise made clear in the words, “until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.”

In the midst of the personal and cultural brokenness in which we live,
we experience everlasting fellowship with Christ through Holy Communion.

Nourished by sacramental grace, we strive to be formed into the image of Christ
and to be made instruments for transformation in the world.

My friends, none of us is worthy to receive Christ, but all of us are welcome at His table…

I encourage you to receive Holy Communion at every opportunity.

For now, we will continue the once a month tradition at our morning worship service;

We will also continue to offer the Sacrament every Sunday evening at worship;

In this way we all have the chance to experience this means of grace every week.

I long for a time when the United Methodist Church enthusiastically embraces its rich heritage and returns to the practice of celebrating Holy Communion at every worship service.

I truly believe that this is one way that we can renew the heart of our church and revive the spirit that once motivated our church.

Like the little girl who was disappointed in the amount of bread she received, I believe that United Methodists are looking for more in the life of the church…

I believe that we all want more grace, more love, more Jesus…

I believe we can all cry out, “I don’t want much, I just want more!”

O Lord, I know I am not worthy to receive You,
but I also know that I am welcome at Your table because You invited me here.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...Amen

Celebrate!

"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?" (Luke 15:4, NIV)

One of my favorite neckties was a gift to me not long ago. Some of you may have seen it at church. It is a bright red background with the pictures of many white sheep scattered over it. In the middle of the tie there is a single black sheep. These words are printed near the bottom of the tie: "He left the ninety-nine to come find me." Maybe now you can understand why this is my favorite necktie. Surely, the black sheep on the tie is me and God took the time to leave the ninety-nine to come get me. Thank you, Lord!

As I am writing this article we are in the middle of our sermon series: "Celebrate!" The idea for this series is taken from our junior and senior high school district camp curriculum from this summer. It was my honor to serve as a small group leader for the senior high camp. During my time there I had the privilege of hearing a dear friend of mine preach every day for a week. Rev. Barry Bennett, Associate Pastor of Victory Memorial UMC in Guymon, brought wonderful messages to the campers and to the adult volunteers. Barry's enthusiasm and insight inspired me to bring this theme to our church. "Celebrate!" is truly a word we need to use more often. God has invited all of us to a big party and we have much to celebrate as we seek to respond to this invitation as faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

It is important for us to recognize that God's invitation is really to a party, a huge eternal party where everyone is invited to come and celebrate God's great love, forgiveness, healing, and grace. All anyone needs to do is accept the invitation and come to the party. During this series we have encountered parables about banquets where people were invited and didn't bother to show up; parties where people tried to take the best seats in the house; lunches where the host was cautioned not to invite those who could reciprocate. We've looked at the salvation stories that start in the Old Testament and follow God's people through to the coming of Christ; we've seen how God is at work throughout history and how God uses the most unlikely people to carry the salvation news to the world. We re-visited the familiar story of The Prodigal Son and recognized ourselves in the story as we celebrated God's extraordinary reception of those who turn to God for forgiveness and grace. We took some time to celebrate the fellowship of our own congregation with a time of worship and singing, followed with a delicious lunch. (By the way, I still maintain that food consumed in church is low-cal!) Still to come in our celebration is a reminder of how Holy Communion brings us face-to-face with the Living God every time we celebrate it and then we will see the final victory that Jesus Christ won over sin and death; a victory that he shares with each one of us. That is some great stuff to celebrate! Don't you agree?

Sometimes I think we are way too solemn about coming to church. Yes, we need to come with a certain level of reverence for the One True God; that does not mean we cannot also come with smiles and glad hearts that celebrate all God has done for each one of us personally. When we gather we should gather to share the love of Christ with one another. When we sing we should hold our heads high, smile, and sing with gusto. God is not interested in hearing only the best singers; God wants to hear all the people raise their voices in a joyful noise unto the Lord. Don't be afraid to clap your hands, shout amen, or raise your hands in praise. Expect the presence of God to be enjoyable. Our sanctuary is a beautiful and holy space; so is the Kingdom of Heaven. I dare say that the residents of heaven are not quiet about their celebration of the glory of God's presence; I believe they sing loud Hosannas and Glorias. I think the angels dance, sing, and play harps and lyres. The Bible talks a lot about joy; we need more joy in our lives and in our worship. Celebrate all that God has done, all that God has given, and all that God will do. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit…Amen! Hallelujah!

God bless,
Pastor Don

White House minister: Obama's man of faith, Joshua DuBois, has dual roles - latimes.com

Religion DOES have a place in politics. Separation of church and state DOES NOT mean that one's faith should not and/or does not influences one's public life or decision-making. It is heartening to see that a Christian minister is a member of the White House staff who's thoughts are heard at the highest levels of government. Thank you, Jesus, for placing this man of God near the seat of power in our country.

White House minister: Obama's man of faith, Joshua DuBois, has dual roles - latimes.com

The Journey Continues

"When the days drew near for him to be taken up,
he set his face to go to Jerusalem." (Luke 9:51, NIV)

And so begins what is often referred to as "Luke's Journey Narrative," a lengthy section of Luke's gospel that tells us about Jesus' journey to Jerusalem where his destiny is fulfilled and our salvation is secured. For the past several weeks I have been preaching a series of sermons on The Journey, looking at what we are called, as Christians, to do as we follow God's path for our lives. This section of Luke's gospel (9:51-19:28) includes some of the best-known stories about Jesus' life. Many of these stories are told in the other gospels and set at different times than where Luke places them; some of the stories are only told by Luke. The point is that Luke is much less concerned with the accurate chronology of these events and more concerned about presenting a cohesive narrative that paints a vivid picture of the path Jesus follows and calls us to follow. For Luke, it is about the journey.

Luke saw our Christian life as a journey with Jesus. It is a journey that challenges us, causes us pain, walks us through suffering, and leads us to the glory of salvation. It is why Luke closes his gospel with the Walk to Emmaus story where, after Christ's passion, death, and resurrection, the disciples once again encounter Jesus on the road…walking beside them. The image is clear: Jesus never leaves us, he is always walking beside us along our journey, and he has already been wherever we are going.

As Jesus leads his disciples on this final journey to Jerusalem, he teaches them all they need to know to carry on his mission after he's gone. The fact that Jesus led them to Jerusalem stands in contrast to their sending out from Jerusalem at Pentecost. The disciples' witnessing ministry is centered at Jerusalem, but it travels throughout the world and transcends the boundaries of the Temple and traditional religious practice. This is a journey of challenge, change, and progressive upheaval of the status quo. It is a clear witness to the fact that following Jesus Christ isn't easy and that it involves much more than standing still. It is a journey that calls us forward every day and challenges us to respond to Jesus in ways that often make us uncomfortable.

Simply accepting Christ as Savior is not enough. When we accept Jesus, our lives our transformed and our behavior should change to reflect this transformation. We move away from the thoughts and deeds of our past and move forward along the path that God lays out for us. It is never about doing something to make ourselves worthy of salvation; we can't do anything so righteous as to earn this gift. It is always about responding to what Christ has already done for us. The response is the basis for our journey as Christians. As we move forward we stop doing things that displease God and try to do those things that God wants and expects from us. This is the essence of the word "repentance" that Jesus calls us to – turning away from one thing and turning toward a better thing.

One of my favorite Scripture verses is Jeremiah 29:11 – "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm; to give you a future with hope." God has a plan for each of us; God has already laid out the journey that He wants us to take. That journey will takes us many different places, but in the end it will lead us straight into His arms for all eternity. This is the journey that Jesus leads us on in the gospel. Through his stories and challenges, Jesus makes it clear that we have choices to make that will either keep us on the path or lead us off into the weeds. Each lesson Jesus presents, every parable he tells, offer us clear instructions on how to make the right choices. Admonitions such as: "Follow me," "Go and proclaim the kingdom of God," "Do this and you will live," and "Go and do likewise," are not idle words – they are clear commands to change our behavior.

Jesus forces us to look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are and as God intends us to be. We are called to change our attitudes, modify our behavior, and treat one another as the children of God we all really are. We are challenged to view every decision we make through God's lens and do our very best to discern God's will; this really means that we are to stop making selfish decisions based only on our desires. We are told to do the work of God's kingdom on earth without regard to our personal comfort, always thinking of the other person before we think of "me." These are not easy choices and they are often painful for us.

I pray that we can all develop a clearer picture of the journey God has mapped out for us and that we will learn together how to make that journey as faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

God bless,
Pastor Don

Is it ever OK to be mean?

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."
(Isaiah 5:20, NIV)

"Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question." (Anonymous)

Isaiah warns the Israelites against unethical behavior. Persons who twist their situation to their own advantage are those who mistake ideology for values. The other quote above attempts to show the difference between real values and ideologies. I am reminded of the Church that rejected the teachings of Galileo when they threatened the established theories of the Church. Clearly the Church was mistaken, but their ideology won out over the facts presented. Galileo's fate might have been different if the Church had sought to discern the value of God's Creation rather than the self-serving ideology the Church had created.

I am deeply troubled by the mean spirit that seems so prevalent in our culture. It doesn't seem to make much difference if we are talking politics or sports; religion or patriotism; poverty or war; the conversations have taken a turn for the mean-spirited and intolerant. We seem to be far less interested in another's point of view than we are in being right and winning every argument. We seem much less concerned about what is good for the community or the country than we are concerned about what's good for me and what makes me happy. We are more about winning at all cost than we are about playing fair and letting the best person win the day. We are, in general, a mean and self-centered bunch of people in today's world.

Isaiah wrote during a time when the people believed that God was active in their everyday life; God is still active today in our lives. Isaiah wrote to people in the midst of trouble and unrest in the political and social circumstances in which they lived. We continue to face difficult political and social circumstances in our time. Isaiah warned that trouble the people faced was a symptom of the troubled relationship they had with God. I believe we can see the same warning today. The unrest in our political and social environments is a symptom of the trouble in our relationship with God. We have stopped listening to the lessons God is teaching and we pay too much attention to the lessons our culture shoves down our throats. This, I believe, is the real difference between values and ideology. God offers us a set of values that, if applied to our lives, will lead us to a close personal relationship with God and ultimately to our eternal life in God's presence. Ideology, on the other hand, leads down a path to destruction and eternal separation from God.

Being in a right relationship with God means being in right relationships with other human beings and with ourselves. It means naming good as good and evil as evil. It means leaving the darkness to walk in the light. It means faithfully applying our true moral values to every decision we make and really trying to discern what God wants us to do in every situation we face. It means rejecting extreme ideologies that cause us to ignore the opinions of others and demonize those who disagree with us. It means recognizing that we do not have all the answers and we need the help of our fellow human beings and God. It means admitting that we frequently make mistakes, act with bad judgment, and always need the grace and mercy of God to pick us up when we fail.

Ideologies cause us to forget that the answer to almost every question lies somewhere in the middle, between the two extremes. Finding ways to live with one another in the midst of our sin and need for forgiveness is what binds us together as children of God and helps us to build God's kingdom. Values lead us to love one another, care for one another, and lift one another up when we fall. Values lead us to follow the path Jesus blazed for us. Values help us to realize that, even though we fall short of the glory of God, God values all of us as His good creation. Amen.

God bless,
Pastor Don

Happy for the Gift

 

I’ve been thinking about my sermon from Pentecost Sunday ever since I presented it. I’m hoping that the message was clear…We need to be excited about the gift we received from God in the form of the Holy Spirit. I told the church that if we really believe in Jesus Christ and trust that he keeps his promises, then we are all Pentecostal Christians. After all, didn’t Jesus promise to send the Holy Sprit, the Advocate, the Counselor, to remind us of Jesus’ teaching and to guide us forward in our mission to the world? If this is true, then the Spirit’s presence in our lives makes us Pentecostal by definition.

If we accept this premise, then I believe we need to be very happy about this gift we’ve been given. This is a really great present and it’s worth sharing with everyone we meet. I think that was the general idea…God gives us the Spirit so we will know how to share Jesus with the world. We are not called to blend in and hide our gift; we are called to stand out and draw attention to God. I hope you enjoy this message. Below is a link to the audio version:

http://sermon.net/revdtabbs