Mes amis,
As the Goreflakes continue to
punctuate the coldest February on record - a tribute to climate change that
seems to be heading more North than South concomitant to the reality that
there's always been climate change undaunted by human
interest/intervention/ideology - it appears we're going to get a few to several
more inches this coming Sunday morning.
Surprise! Surprise!
Not!
"Now we see in a mirror
dimly..."
I don't get what's on His mind when
it comes to the bad weather that we've been having almost every Sunday since...
While I have my suspicions...
Anyway, this is just a reminder that
we never cancel worship on the corner of L&M and never will except, uh, you
know, for the parousia or something like that.
However, please use
common sense if you have particular problems with physical mobility, balance,
driving in the snow, and so on.
Annnnnnnd remember, you can always tune into the live broadcast of our second service every Sunday by clicking on www.bnnsradio.com. While there's no
substitute for "being there" as ours is an incarnational faith, it's
a link!
Blessings and Love!
P.S. BTW, what's below was written
to folks in a church that I've been trying to help in another part of our
presbytery. I've been told others may...
Friends,
This may be your greatest
opportunity to honor Jesus and model something/Someone better for your
particular congregation, franchise, community, state, nation, and world.
In a world that bruises, beats,
batters, and butchers, you have an opportunity to show how people can come
together, remain together, and move into the future together unafraid in/through/for Jesus.
Our world and, sadly, so many
churches of all flavors/franchises like to divide, destroy, and...
They like to fight.
Not Jesus.
Not people who love Jesus.
And you, as elders and deacons and
Sunday School teachers and pastors and members, are called, depending upon His
grace, to pray and labor to imitate His mercy, grace, forgiveness, and agape.
This is your kairos moment - a divinely
appointed time for you to show how you are different from the world and how
Jesus keeps you together.
This is no time to quit.
This is no time to give up on each
other or anyone, like you, trying to love Jesus by praying and laboring to love
like Jesus.
Recently, I was told of a family who
attended a public event in which there were several families who used to go to
the same church and how they...
You get the picture.
What a terrible, awful, unfaithful,
and...witness to Jesus!
Imagine - don't
"reimagine" - how people apart from Jesus are repelled from Jesus by
people who say they love Jesus while
hating and divorcing themselves from others while making the unconvincing claim
that Jesus heals, unites, bridges, and...
You get the picture.
When I first arrived in Belvidere
over ten years ago, I often said, "Please do not tell anyone that I'm your
pastor; because I don't want people to think you got your irascible, irregular,
and irreconcilable behaviors from me...Please do not invite them to join us for
anything until you confess, repent, and start acting out your faith instead of
just mouthing it like you mouth meaningless litanies in worship...If you're not
going to act like Christians, don't pretend that you are...If Jesus has not
changed your desire to get along with each other and others and live lives
of strong calm sanity, how can you have the audacity to tell others what Jesus
can do for them that He, obviously, hasn't
done for you?..."
Or something like that.
While we've still got challenges on
the corner of L&M, it's a heaven
of a lot better than it used to be since we stopped blaming Jesus for some
"Christians" who, obviously, need lots more of Him in their
confession, conduct, and countenance.
Take a deep breath.
Rap yourselves around Him in a Psalm
1 kinda way.
When necessary, remember we are
the people of 1 John 1:5-10.
Be willing to admit your mistakes.
Be willing to say, "If I am
wrong by the example of Jesus, Holy Scripture, and common sense, please tell me
so I may confess, repent, and our relationships may be restored."
Be eager to share/ask/invite,
"I was wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love
you."
If not us...
Blessings and Love!