Pastor’s Ponderings: April 2020
Posted on Mar 31, 2020 in General, Newsletter, Pastor's Ponderings |
I don’t know about you, but I would like someone to say, “April Fool!” and then we could all get back to our regular routine and this would all be just a strange memory. However, that is not going to happen. We find ourselves in the midst of a national crisis the likes of which have not been seen since World War II. We are in a crisis that has gripped the entire globe and is wreaking havoc upon us in many different ways. Obviously, there is the specter of the Covid-19 virus itself that is threatening our health and potentially our very lives. The measures we are taking to prevent the spread of this disease are devastating our economy and we expect to come out on the other side of this in a very different world than what we were experiencing even a month ago. Whom among us would have thought we would be doing our Sunday morning worship service with YouTube being the primary means of accessing that worship? A month ago I would have said maybe for some folks who are having to stay home for one reason or another, but I never would have imagined at that point that we wouldn’t be able to gather in groups numbering more than 10. It is almost overwhelming to take it all in.
So, what are we supposed to do with all of this? We do what the true disciples of Christ have always done. We turn to the Lord in prayer. We turn to the Lord in Bible Study and Worship. We turn to our neighbors and show them the love of Christ. Who is my neighbor? My neighbor is my spouse, my children, those living in the same house with me. My neighbor is the person living next door or down the street or across town or in another state or even another country. There are two kinds of neighbors, just like there are two kinds of people. There are those who are trusting by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and there are those that are not. So as we work to show the love of Christ we follow the injunction of Scripture that says, “9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:9-10).
Pastor’s Ponderings: March 2020
Posted on Mar 1, 2020 in General, Newsletter, Pastor's Ponderings |
Busyness is a fairly common topic in this Pastor’s Pondering section of our monthly newsletter. I come back to it often, because I recognize it is something I need to not just fight against, it is something I need wage war against. Busyness is the enemy of good leadership. It sneaks in and saps our strength by causing us to spend our best efforts on “good” things. Reread that last sentence, I wrote it that way purposefully. We need to spend our best efforts doing that which is best, not just doing that which is good. How do you discern the difference between what is best and what is good? I’ll tell you how I go about it. I pray for the Lord to guide me into that which is best and to guard me from getting caught up in doing good to the point that I never get to what is best. Satan would have us get really busy doing all kinds of “good” things so that we are exhausted and unable to that which is best. Think about that. The next time you are feeling tired and spent at the end of the day, ask yourself this question: “Did I do what is best today, or did I fill the time with just what was ‘good’?” I hope you can see that which is “good”, when it gets in the way of what is “best”, is no longer good.
One of the things the elders on the Session are wrestling with is how do we do a better job of leading and shepherding the flock here at Faith Church. One of our big challenges is getting people to join in the work of the ministry. Many of the elders serve on multiple committees and are not as fruitful overall because they are spread too thin. I include myself in that number. I think we are going to be working over the coming months to try and change that. What we are saying is we are going to try and change the 80/20 rule in the church. The 80/20 rule says 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. That means we need to have a cultural shift in our church to recognize that 80/20 environment as not healthy. Immediately, we need to see this as an impossible task apart from the Lord’s working in our midst. We need to be diligent in prayer for this to change. After that, this means more participation on the part of the laity and a different focus of effort on the part of the elders and deacons. What are your gifts? Where are you working? Are you bearing fruit for the kingdom at Faith Church? If not, why not? Will you be a part of shifting the 80/20 culture in our church to change the rule to 100% of the work being done by at least 80% of the people? When we get there, we’ll still need to be thoughtful about doing that which is best over that which is merely “good.” However, we’ll be getting there together and that will be a fruitful enterprise.
Pastor’s Ponderings: February 2020
Posted on Feb 1, 2020 in General, Newsletter |
Growing pains, I know some people who have gone through them and it was not pleasant. I don’t remember ever having growing pains while I was younger. All the growing pains I’ve ever experienced have been from growing older and breaking down. So, why would I be talking about growing pains? Well, I’m sitting here waiting for a group to gather with an architect so we can get a bid on what it would cost to do a facilities review of our building and grounds. We have come to a place as a church body, that we need to see how we might better use the space we have and find out if there is anything we can do beyond our current footprint in order to give us more space to grow.
Growing is a good thing. Healthy things grow. If our kids don’t grow we become immediately concerned and do whatever we can to make sure they are experiencing healthy growth. Why would that be any different when we are talking about the church? The church needs to grow and by God’s grace, it is growing. Again, healthy things grow. So, growth is a sign of health (it is not the only sign, and certainly our growth must be measured in fruit being borne of faithful gospel ministry). If we are rightly preaching the Gospel, then people should be growing individually as disciples of Christ and the church should be growing in number as people hear the gospel and are converted.
Most of our growth has come from one of two ways. First, we are certainly growing through childbirth which is a great praise and it is concerning our children where we are going to be feeling the growing pains most acutely. Secondly, we have had a lot of what is typically called, “transfer” growth. That is not a bad thing if people come to our church and find a place they can call home and get plugged in. I’m not interested in “stealing sheep” from other churches so we don’t go around seeking to recruit people to transfer in, but if God brings them here, then praise the Lord! The kind of growth the leadership would like to see and I think we can all agree is that of conversion growth. We would love to see people coming and hearing the gospel and making professions of faith in Jesus Christ. That means we need to pray for non-believers to come and then we need to be looking for non-believers to invite in.
Now, the fact is we are growing and we are faced with the challenges that presents. In the short run, that means we are probably going to get a little more uncomfortable until we can change things to provide a more comfortable experience in our facilities. What does that mean for you personally? I think it means we are each going to need to be patient and understanding about our limitations within our facility. It also means we need to be praying that God would work mightily in providing for the growth that we are experiencing and that He would continue to bless and grow us. I praise God for this place He has brought us to, and am looking forward to where He is leading Faith Church.
Pastor’s Ponderings: January 2020
Posted on Jan 1, 2020 in General, Newsletter |
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that we were worried about Y2K. Here we are on the cusp of 2020 and what do we have in store for the next twenty years? The last twenty went by in a flash. I’m guessing the next twenty will be gone before we know it. Life is like that and that shouldn’t surprise us.
Listen to what James has to say about it in 4:13-15, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
None of us know what tomorrow will bring, that is true. We make all kinds of elaborate plans and we all have dreams and desires, but none of us know if we’ll be given the days to fulfill those things. We also need to realize that many of our dreams and desires are self-serving and not in line with the will of God.
OK, you’re probably thinking, that pastor is one of those “glass half-empty” kind of guys. Well, I have to admit, I can be that way. But look what the Bible has to say about it. Our life is like a vapor or a mist that is at once here and before you know it is gone. So what are we supposed to do with that? This is where you find the competing philosophies of life. You have on one side the man-focused philosophies that are represented by the old Schlitz Beer Commercials whose slogan was, “You only go around once in life, so you have to grab for all the gusto you can…” Another way of putting this is often seen on bumper stickers that say, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”
If all there is in life is serving yourself, then the whole purpose of life must be to do everything you can to make yourself happy. That becomes a miserable existence, because serving the idol of self is never satisfying, because you are not God and you don’t have the capability of satisfying yourself. The only satisfaction in this life will be found in living this life as you were designed and created to live it. God designed to find your deepest satisfaction and fulfillment in serving Him. Any philosophy, any way of life that doesn’t take you in that direction is going to be ultimately dissatisfying.
Come back to James and look at the text. He isn’t saying don’t make plans, he is saying commit your plans to the Lord knowing that He is sovereign over all things. Serve the Lord with the life that you have been given, serve Him in the place where you find yourself. As He opens doors for you, go through them and pursue knowing and growing in Christ. This is where we come to another verse that sheds light on this life for us: Matthew 10: 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. There are folks out there making all kinds of money telling you how to have your best life now. Your best life now is all about losing your life and taking up your cross in order to follow Jesus. This life will be over all too soon, don’t waste it trying to find satisfaction in things that could never deliver. If you want your best life now and forever, put off the old man and put on the new and follow Jesus.
My prayer is that 2020 will be a year full of life for you and for our church. May the Lord guide and direct our steps for His glory as we face this year and in Him may we have life and that abundantly.
Pastor’s Ponderings: December 2019
Posted on Dec 1, 2019 in General, Newsletter |
let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Time is relentless in its undeterred march ever onward.
The questions we must be asking ourselves is what are we doing with the time we have been
given. It is a question that needs to be asked often. You know as well as I do that at the end of
December there will be the dreaded New Year’s resolutions. I think it is a good thing to take
time out from time to time to take stock of our lives and how we are living them. I submit to
you, while you are dreading the New Year’s resolution thing, that we should be taking time
daily to do brief reviews of our lives. That should be part of our daily prayer life. We do well to
also have a weekly or bi-weekly time where we check in with a trusted friend or mentor with
whom we have a discipleship relationship. Then we also do well to take some time to have
more serious reflection on how things are going in our life. As we come into the Holiday Season
with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, we are faced with a time that is tailor made for
reflection. What are you thankful for? What difference does the birth of Jesus make in your
life? How are you going to serve Jesus this year? These are a couple of simple questions for
any Christian as we experience these holidays. There are a bunch of questions like that I could
ask. Then the question becomes, will I ask those of myself? Will I take an honestly searching
look at my life and invite the Holy Spirit to shine His light into the dark recesses of my life and
clean out the clutter that is there. That takes real courage. That takes Holy Spirit enabled
courage.
Now, hear me clearly, I’m not advocating a morbid introspection, where you spend long hours
determining all the ways you fail the Lord day to day. That is not healthy spiritually or
emotionally. You should already know that you are a hopeless sinner. Otherwise, why would
the Son of God have to die to save you? Don’t ever think this is about holy navel gazing so that
you can try harder to do better. That is not a godly pursuit. When the Holy Spirit convicts you
of sin, confess it and repent. Repentance means that you are going to take steps to put that sin
to death. In other words you are going to work at not doing that sin anymore. Confession is
agreeing with God that you sin is sin, and repentance is agreeing with God that sin doesn’t
belong in your life and you are seeking the Holy Spirit’s help to put that sin to death, by the
grace of God, for the glory of God, because He loves you and you want to show your love for
Him. If you come to Him in times of reflecting asking, “Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24)!” If that is the attitude in your reflection, then you will be
well prepared to receive God’s direction for how He would have you move forward in your life
in service to Him.
Pastor’s Ponderings: November 2019
Posted on Nov 1, 2019 in General, Newsletter |
Asuncion, Paraguay to Panama City. You may be wondering why I’m here, why I’m spending my
time and money to go down to Paraguay on Presbytery business? That is a valid question and
since we are nearing the end of October and the beginning of November when we as a church
typically focus on mission work, I think it is important to write about these things.
As most of you are probably aware, our church, the Presbyterian Church in America is a small
denomination that is composed of several thousand churches across the country. Each church
has its own elders, both teaching and ruling elders that make up the local court of the church
we call a “session.” The elders of a particular region make up a Presbytery, our Presbytery is
called “Potomac” and encompasses the Washington D.C. area. The elders from every church in
the nation then make up the “General Assembly.” We are a “grass roots” denomination
because the power and authority of the church is not something that flows from top-down, but
from bottom-up. The work of the church happens at the local level and is supported from the
local level. As the Teaching Elder of Faith Church, I’m a member of the Presbytery and subject
to the authority of the Presbytery. The Ruling Elders of Faith Church are members of the
church and they are also counted members of the Presbytery. Now, what does this have to do
with me being on a trip to Paraguay?
Martin Hudzinski and I are members of a “Provisional Presbytery” for a mission work down in a
Paraguay. This is a work that was established by the General Assembly as requested by
Potomac Presbytery, which we received as a request from the church in Paraguay. They
wanted oversight from a Presbyterian body and since we were connected to them through
relationships already formed here in the U.S., that was the logical course of action. There are
three churches that we are working with in Paraguay that are seeking to establish their own
national reformed Presbyterian denomination. They are not yet at a place where they are big
enough to establish their own Presbytery, so they need help. So, we have a “Provisional
Presbytery” that serves as a “commission” meaning we can act as a Presbytery, examining,
ordaining, and installing men to ministry as well as a number of other things. They benefit from
having others come to lend a hand in the work so they know that they are not alone in trying to
make godly and wise decisions. Mutual accountability and encouragement is one of the
beauties of our Presbyterian system. Our hopes are for the churches in Paraguay to be able to
stand up as a Presbytery in the next two years. They need to have a minimum of four churches
and they are getting close to that goal.
I would like to thank the congregation for giving me the time to go and do the work of the
Presbytery. It is a sacrifice on the part of the local church, but it also benefits the church in the
ways I grow through this work. As you have the opportunity, I would encourage you to thank
Martin Hudzinski for going down to Paraguay to participate. It is easier for a teaching elder to
go do this kind of work, but it is more difficult for a ruling elder to take time off from his job to
go and support this kind of thing. I want you to understand that it is critical to the work of the
and fully in the life of the Presbytery and denomination. Martin serves as the Chairman of our
Presbytery’s Mission to the World Committee. I’ll close with this request, that you pray for
your elders as they go and do the work not only caring for the local church, but taking the work
out to the world. Please remember Rich Rochford, David Johnston, and myself as we go with
the Faith Church team down to Colombia beginning on November 11 th .
Pastor’s Ponderings: October 2019
Posted on Oct 1, 2019 in General, Newsletter, Pastor's Ponderings |
As I write this, the leaves are falling and we are three months away from our Christmas Eve Service (and Bob!). What does that have to do with anything? Not much, it just helps us to orient where we are in the year. I never cease to be amazed with the rapidity that I again find myself having to write these pieces for the Tapestry. For the faithful few of you who read these things, I hope you find them helpful. Every third Monday and Tuesday of September, the Potomac Presbytery has its annual retreat. At these retreats, we have a speaker who comes in and usually does three large group sessions. The speakers are usually noteworthy Christian leaders, and this year was no exception. Dr. Diane Langberg is a clinical Psychologist in practice in the Philadelphia area. She has been in the PCA for 41 years. She is a successful author and international speaker and authority on the subject of trauma and abuse. So, why would a bunch of pastors go on a retreat and invite a woman to come speak on trauma and abuse? On the face of it, that sounds neither relaxing nor edifying. The church needs to talk about trauma and abuse because it isn’t just the problem of those people over there. It is a problem in every church, no Christians are immune to it. I have seen its effects many times in the lives of people that God has brought me into contact with in the congregations I have served. If you have been around me for very long, you’ve probably heard me say, “we are all sinners who have been sinned against.” That is true. Many of us have suffered abuse and trauma. Just look at the statistics, they are staggering. If you say hello to four people at church on any given Sunday morning, you can be almost certain that you have spoken to someone who has suffered abuse and trauma. Sadly, those are conservative numbers. If you are the person who has suffered abuse and trauma, I’m sorry, that grieves my heart for you, and I want you to know that you are welcome at Faith Church and we will not shy away from what has happened to you. If you want to talk about it, or if you want to find help to deal with it, we are committed to making that happen. I’m being careful not to be too specific about what constitutes abuse and trauma. These things take on many forms. We tend to think in terms of sexual or physical abuse and we need to be mindful of these because they are very common, but we need to think in terms of emotional and psychological abuse as well. Sometimes, that abuse can be as simple as unguarded words that can and do inflict great harm. I’m purposefully not going to pursue any further categorization so we don’t obfuscate the issue. My point in bringing this up is that I want us to recognize that we are not immune in our nice, small church in the suburbs of Frederick. The threat is real and we must guard against it at every level, whatever type of abuse it may be. The Session is working to address these issues, so that we provide a safe environment for our children and all the people of our congregation. This is an on-going effort that will take hard work and diligence. It will also require vulnerability and wisdom. Please pray for the Session and for our church that God will give us the wisdom and strength that we need to deal with the damage that comes from trauma and abuse. Also, pray that God will protect us from these things as He grows us in grace. We will be working to continue to address issues of abuse and trauma wherever they may arise in our sphere of influence.
Pastor’s Ponderings: September 2019
Posted on Sep 1, 2019 in General, Newsletter, Pastor's Ponderings |
Pastor’s Ponderings: August 2019
Posted on Aug 1, 2019 in General, Newsletter, Pastor's Ponderings |
Pastor’s Ponderings: June 2019
Posted on Jun 1, 2019 in General, Newsletter, Pastor's Ponderings |
