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The Savages - This movie features stellar performances by two of Hollywood’s best actors - Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. It sensitively and, I think, pretty effectively deals with some of the issues surrounding care of an aging father in the last months of his life. The situation in this movie is further complicated by a father, who was a less than a stellar parent, and siblings who as a result have been estranged from him. The result is a movie that is funny, sad, compassionate, and moving all at the same time. I rate this 7 out of 10 stars.

The Dark Knight - As noted by just about everyone who has seen this movie, its strength is Heath Ledger who excels in his performance as the Joker. His performance is superbly maniacal, eerily wicked, and an effective personification of evil. The movie deals with both Batman’s and society’s moral dilemma of figuring out what exactly is at their disposal and how to use those means in order to combat and defeat their evil foe. For a comic book movie, this is a surprisingly effective and engaging movie (2.5 hours and only once did I look at my watch…) and a great successor to “Batman Begins.” I rate this 7 out of 10 stars.

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People always seem a little bit surprised when they get in our car and discover that we have not just one but several Johnny Cash CDs. They are even more surprised when they find out that Johnny is one of my all time favorite musical artists.

Now some of you here might be able to think back to Johnny’s early stuff. Classics like Ring of Fire, I Walk the Line, and Men in Black. While that old stuff is great, where Johnny really excels is in the recordings he made in the last couple of years of his life.

I’m not kidding when I say that these are some of the best albums of any recording artist out there. In his old age, Johnny found a way of connecting to the reality of life, belting out some of the most emotional and spiritual recordings out there.

One of my favorite songs is on Johnny’s album called American III. It’s called Nobody and instead of trying to sing it to and doing a really bad impression of Johnny Cash, I’m gonna play a bit of it here for you: (Click here for the song.)

Lori will tell you that I always break a smile and sing along, every time I hear that one line:

Well one time when things was Lookin’ bright
I started to whittlin’ on a stick one night
Who said “Hey! That’s dynamite!”?
Nobody

While that line is pretty funny, what isn’t funny is the reality Johnny so aptly expresses in that song: He has nobody he can call on. No one he can connect to. He’s got no one who cares for him or that he cares for. It’s a horribly lonely life. A miserable existence for the person that song represents.

I suppose one of the reasons I identify so much with that song is that I can remember a time in my life where I felt like that. Where it seemed like I had just about nobody in my life. No one who cared for me or who I really cared for.

It wasn’t long after I had graduated from grad school. A girl friend I had dated for a year or so broke up with me. I was struggling in my job and not making enough money to keep up with my bills. The church I was on the leadership team for was going through turmoil. Relationships with my friends were in transition. Spiritually I was dry and felt like I was shriveling up.

This period of time in my life lasted for at least a year or so. I am grateful to God that it it didn’t stay that way. Fortunately, after a time away from church, I got involved in another church. I had a chance to go on a retreat that helped re-charge me spiritually.

But more important than all of that, I became involved in a small group with some other disciples who helped me through that time in my life. They listened to me. They supported me. They challenged me. And they prayed for me.

As a result, I started to once again get more involved in leadership at my new church. I was challenged to try some new ministry related things. One of them involved working on a Prison ministry team. Eventually I discerned a calling into the ministry that was confirmed by the group I was in.

A couple of years later, a good friend in that group, said, “Do you remember when you first started how you said you told us you were bored, lonely and that it seemed like you didn’t have any friends? Look how your life has changed since then.”

She was right, my life had become full and rich. It had gone beyond anything I had experienced before. And it was greater than anything I had ever expected.

I don’t know what’s going on with each one of you, but I bet that some of you right now feel like you are living a life like the one that Johnny Cash sings about. Or maybe you are in a phase of life like the one I went through.

Perhaps, life is crashing in on you, things are falling apart. Even though people are all around you, you may be feeling like you are alone and that no one cares for you. Even in the midst of a congregation full of people, it feels like no one is there for you, to hear you, to listen to you.

Today’s discipleship question is, “Where is your Antioch?”

In today’s scripture passage from the book of Acts, we read about Paul and a group of guys who met together to inspire, share with, and encourage one another. Their names are Paul, Barnabas, Simon, Lucius, and Manean.

So far in our sermon series, we have already heard about Paul and Barnabas. But what about the other fellows? While we don’t know anything else about Lucius, we do know or can guess a few things about the others.

Acts says that Simon was also named “Niger” which means “black” in Latin, so it’s quite possible that Simon was from somewhere in Africa. Some even speculate that he may have been the same Simon who was forced by the Roman soldiers to carry Jesus cross.

Manean is described as a foster brother to Herod Antipas, the very same Herod who had John the Baptist arrested and beheaded. Herod also interviewed Jesus on the night he was arrested.

Even though these five guys came from totally different walks of life and had very unique and compelling life stories, it seems that they all held one thing in common. They were companions together in the faith.

Within their brotherhood of faith, they challenged, supported, and encouraged each other. They met together to share what was going on in their lives. They sought to discern together what God was doing and where God was leading each one of them.

In our story from Acts, we read about the five of them fasting and praying together. As they did, they came to discern that Paul and Barnabas were being called and sent out to a new place of ministry.

Preparing to follow God’s leading, the three friends gathered around Paul and Barnabas. They laid hands on them, and prayed that the Holy Spirit would be upon their work and their ministry.

It seems that that little group of guys in Antioch served as Paul’s spiritual home base. It was the place he went to where others cared for him and where he cared for others. It was the place where others knew who he was and where Paul drew strength for his own faith and life.

We all need a spiritual home base, a place that serves as our Antioch. We need it in order to fight off what can at times be that overwhelming sense of being alone. But there are other reasons we need it too.

I recently heard the popular Christian author and pastor, Rick Warren say that when it comes to sermons “People don’t remember much. If you are motivated, you remember about seven bits of information; if you’re not motivated you remember about two.”

I also have a vague memory of him saying somewhere else that people only remember 5% of what they hear in any given sermon.

Now as a preacher, that’s pretty depressing news…I don’t like thinking that by the time you will leave here this morning you will have forgotten 95% of what I have been saying. At times it really makes me wonder exactly what it is that I’m doing up here.

But that fact is not as depressing as the thought that most of you are trying to go about your week with only two to seven bits of spiritual information that you might happen to remember on any given Sunday morning. That sounds like spiritual mal-nourishment to me. It might even be a recipe for spiritual death.

The worship service on Sunday was never meant to bear the full load of your spiritual life. You weren’t meant to try to make it through a full week subsisting on just two to seven morsels of spiritual truth. There are just too many other demands, pressures, and problems in life to think that that would ever be enough.

If we are going to be really serious about discipleship to Jesus then we all need something more. Being a disciple takes intentional and hard work. It’s simply not possible to be a very good disciple by:

* Just coming each week, or every other week to worship, and listening to a sermon.
* Keeping the radio on your favorite Christian station, or
* Throwing up a quickie prayer to God in the morning or before you go to bed.

We all need a whole lot more than that to sustain our spiritual life. What we all need is a small community of folks that we can learn from.

* We need a group of others who know us well and who can help and encourage us to grow in our relationship with God.
* We need a place where we can think with others about the faith and spiritual things and who will help us apply it to our lives.
* We need people who will be honest with us and tell us when we mess things up or when we get things right.
* We need to be surrounded by folks who can help us to hear and discern the voice of God.
* We need folks who will will pray for us as we go about the various tasks and callings of living and working in this world.

Every so often, you may notice that I am gone for a day or two to something I refer to as RTA. RTA, or Reversing the Arrow, is an initiative of our presbytery that began three years ago. It is the Presbytery’s way to encourage and support pastors in the work we do in our congregations.

When I go away for twenty four hours or so to Camp Wyoming I’m not really on vacation. I’m not playing hooky. I am doing something essential to my life of discipleship and important for me in my ministry here at Knox.

During those twenty four hours away, I get together with six other pastors in this Presbytery, and during our time together:
* We talk about what’s going on in our ministries.
* We share what’s happening in our spiritual as well as personal lives.
* We open up about the joys and the frustrations of our congregations.
* We seek advice for special things we are dealing with or thinking about.
* We worship together and we pray for one another.

And it doesn’t stop there. When something happens in-between the times that we are formally together, I know that I have one or two of these special friends that I can turn to to talk about what is going on, to bounce an idea off of , to seek advice, and to ask for prayer.

My RTA group is important to me and I right now I can’t really imagine doing without it. For this moment and time in my life, it is my spiritual home base. It is the place that I would call my Antioch.

It is my hope that this fall, here at Knox we can start a small group or two, and as a result, I would hope that such a group would become a place where:

* You can gather with a couple of other folks who are also seeking to grow in their spiritual life.
* You can see as a safe place to open up about about the various struggles and trials you have in your faith and life.
* You can grow and deepen in your knowledge of scripture and in your faith in God.
* You can encourage one another to find ways God is calling you to serve others in mission, ministry, and outreach.

And in the end what I really hope is that we would be left with absolutely nobody in our midst who feels like their life is in tune with the words of that Johnny Cash song:

I ain’t never done nothin’ to nobody
I ain’t never got nothin’ from nobody, no time
And until I get something from somebody, sometime
I don’t intend to do nothin’ for nobody, no time

Thanks be to our gracious God, the one who through Jesus Christ, has not only brought us into right relationship with God, but into right relationships with one another. Amen.

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I started my sermon by showing this video:

I love that video. The expression on that kid’s face at the end is priceless.

Now, I bet that most of you don’t really come to church thinking that it’s really all about “you” Or at least I hope most of you don’t do that….

But in a very real way, your average run of the mill church is really just a “meChurch.” If you take a good hard look at them, you’ll begin to notice that just about everything these churches do is focused solely on it’s members.

Their programs, worship services, and ministries are all designed to keep their members happy. But, that’s not really the way it’s supposed to be.

The famous preacher, Tony Campollo, tells the story of a visitor who tours a factory. The factory is humming along. There’s a lot of activity and all the workers are very busy. It looks like things are really efficient and the work is getting done.

The visitor is greatly impressed, but once the tour is over, the visitor says to his tour guide, “Hey, wait a minute, you never showed me the shipping department.”

The tour guide looks at the visitor and in a confused tone he asks, “What do mean by a shipping department?” The visitor answers, “You know the place where you send out everything that the factory produces.”

The tour guide responds, “Oh, we don’t need to have a shipping department. The amazing thing about this factory is that it is entirely self-sustaining. Everything we produce is used to keep this factory running.”

We of course would be surprised, along with the visitor, if we toured a factory that didn’t have a shipping department. We all know that factories are supposed to make stuff and to send it out into the world. If they aren’t they are not doing their job.

But why aren’t we surprised, when we find a church that doesn’t have a shipping department? When we find a church where - as the video suggests - it’s all about the people who go there? Where it’s all about me?

Most churches, don’t have a shipping department. Sure, they’re busy doing all sorts of stuff, there’s a lot of internal activity happening, but it’s all keeping the church going.

All the activity is invested on its members. Nothing is being shipped outside. The church isn’t sending its members out into the world. The church isn’t impacting its community. The members might be showing up for worship, but that’s about it.

Again, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Instead, this is the way it’s supposed to be. The primary direction of our faith and of the church is supposed to be outward.

The members, the church itself, are supposed to be looking and acting outward toward the world. The reason that we’ve been called by God, the purpose for which you and I have been so blessed, is so that we can be a blessing to others.

We see this outward direction of our faith throughout the entire Bible. The first place we see it is right at the start of our Bible, in chapter 12 of the book of Genesis, where we find the story of God’s call of Abraham.

God calls Abraham and tells him to pick up his things and to start on a journey. He calls him out of the Land of Ur the place Abraham calls home and God tells him to go to a land that God promises to show him. In the midst of that call God tells him:

I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Here we see the basic pattern of our faith. Abraham is called and blessed by God. He is told to pack up his things and to go. And God makes it clear that its not all about him. Abraham is called to be a blessing to others. He is blessed in order to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

In the new testament, the resurrected Christ picks up on this very same theme, in what is often called the Great Commission. At the end of his time on earth the disciples who have spent time with him in his earthly ministry have gathered around him, and in the very last words recorded in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells them:

Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

Here again we see the same pattern of faith. Jesus spent time with his disciples, teaching them and blessing them. He also made it clear to them that it wasn’t all about them. When the time was right and he was no longer with them, they were called to go and make more disciples. They were blessed by Jesus so that they would go and bless others.

This same pattern also emerges in the early church.

Last week we spoke of Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement, who discipled the newly converted Paul. Barnabas worked with Paul shaping him and helping him become the apostle who - in the end - had the greatest influence of anyone on the church.

But Paul knew that it wasn’t to end there. He knew it wasn’t all about him. He didn’t enjoy the benefit of his relationship with Barnabas and keep it to himself. Instead he turned around and did to others what Barnabas had done for him.

As we see in our scripture passage for today, Paul turned his attention and focus on a young man by the name of Timothy. In his letter to him, Paul points out that Timothy mostly likely came to faith through his mother and grandmother who were believers. But that didn’t mean that Timothy didn’t have some growing up to do and needed some direction in his life.

So, Timothy became Paul’s project. In fact Timothy is mentioned lots of times by Paul in the New Testament. In most places Paul talks of him fondly, calling him “my son” and “my true child in the faith.”

Timothy was definitely the product of Paul’s work. Paul invested himself in Timothy. And not only that, as he did he made it clear to him that this investment wasn’t just about him. Paul expected Timothy to turn around and do with others what Paul did for him.

As Chapter 2 verse 2 says, Paul expects Timothy to take what he has been taught and to in turn pass it on to others who will be able to share the faith and teach it to others:

You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well.

Paul mentors and disciples Timothy, Paul blesses him, all with the expectation that Timothy will in turn mentor and disciple others. Paul expects Timothy to bless others with what he has been blessed.

Paul’s charge to Timothy, today is my charge to you. In what ways are you passing on the faith to others? In what ways is our congregation out in the world sharing God’s love and drawing others into a relationship with God?

To hopefully make this charge a little more real to you, as your Pastor, I want to talk to you a bit this morning about your church.

Last time I checked we had 94 members on our roles. And if you ask for my opinion, most if not all that we do as a church is really designed with those 94 members in mind.

But what if we turned that around and decided instead to think about our next 94 members? What if we planned and designed everything we did as a church with those 94 new members in mind? What would our church have to look like? What would we have to do?

Now, we can hope and wish all we want for 94 more people to join us, and we can talk about the great things we have here that might bring those new people to our church. For instance:

* We can brag about being an open and family oriented congregation, which I think we are.
* We can boast about how we greet the occasional visitor who comes through our door with a friendly smile and a handshake, which I think we do well.
* We can take pride, as I heard someone say once, in having such a young, great, and dynamic Pastor, and if we do, that’s all well and good.

All of these are good things, BUT I’m afraid it’s not really enough. Another 94 members are only going to join us here at Knox if we begin to turn our attention outward. They are only going to come, if in everything we do and in everything we plan begins with our saying, “it’s not about us it’s about them.”

Personally that means that each one of us needs to reach out to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and our acquaintances, and invite them to join us. And if for some reason this isn’t really the type of place you think they would want to come, then we should be asking why and what we can do to change that.

It also means that we need to find creative and authentic ways to be in our community in ministry, in mission, and in outreach. It’s no longer enough to give money and call that mission. We need to be doing hands on mission and ministry in the community, meeting people were they are, inviting them to join us.

And if and when they do come, we need places for them to plug in. We need small group ministries where they can ask questions about the faith and where you will teach them. That’s right I said, where you will teach them…

You see, I’m the pastor and I’m just one person; I can only do so much. So each you will need to become a Paul to a Timothy and you will need to share and lead them deeper into faith and life.

And if you’re not ready to do that and if the thought of it scares the pants off of you – then good! That means we need to begin small group ministries that will first deepen you in your faith and spiritual life. And that will give you the tools and the confidence to help you as your help others.

Friends, we’re only going to gain another 95 members if you and I decide to put Jesus’ words into action by “going out” and making disciples. And it’s only going to happen as we come to see ourselves as a church with a shipping department sending our members out into the world. Reaching out and sharing the love of God with others.

It’s only going to happen if you and I see ourselves as a group of Pauls preparing to invest ourselves in a bunch of Timothys.

Who is your Timothy? The possibilities are all around you. Your job is to ask God to open your eyes, to lead you and to show you, and to remind you that in the end it’s not all about you.

After all, we don’t want to be a meChurch. Now do we? Amen.

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1.) I find this personally most disturbing: It is quite possible to go day to day without really realizing that anything has happened here. That is to say that most of the city was not affected. If the majority of your life wasn’t based out of downtown, or if you didn’t live in the “Time Check” or “Chezk Village” areas, then you can pretty much get on with your life without facing the reality of what happened.

Still the enormity of it all is huge. According to the city, over 5,000 homes and 1,000 businesses parcels were affected. Most city services have moved to the struggling Westdale Mall (a place that used to be a ghost town, but is no longer….) The Public Library lost the majority of its book collection. Lots of non-profit organizations, including public services to the under-served, lost everything. The list goes on…

2.) Things are moving slowly. People’s lives are being held in the balance as the city tries to figure out what it’s priorities are and the best way to not only rebuild but to limit the chance of a similar scenario happening again. 500 year flood plain homes are getting building permits, while many permits for homes in the 100 year flood plain are being held up.

A walk through a few city streets a week ago revealed rebuilding activity among some home owners and other homeowners who appeared to be dazed and confused. Neighbors didn’t know where the renters or home owners were for houses that appeared to be abandoned. $28,800 (apparently the most that a home-owner can qualify for under FEMA) doesn’t seem like nearly enough to get some of these homes back into shape.

3.) While Cedar Rapids has been getting all sorts of attention, there are tons of little communities scattered up and down the various rivers in Iowa that are struggling to recover. It is my impression that places such as Palo and Oakville are not receiving the same sort of attention and resources that a big city like Cedar Rapids is able to attract.

4.) Lots of congregations were significantly affected, and yet the church city-wide has banded together in order to be the hands and feet of Christ in the city. It began even before the flood with a local group called “Serve the City” that was instrumental in providing the city with volunteers to help in preparation as well as early response efforts.

On the recovery end of things, Churches United has been very involved. And now all the big denominational response organizations are on the ground helping coordinate volunteers and supporting local congregations as they respond to recovery needs.

5.) The tricky thing, I think, and something that I’m slowly coming to terms with is that while people in local congregations have a desire to help out it is just not possible for everyone. Certainly, there is the issue of time, but there is also the reality that the work of gutting a home is physically demanding and not for everyone. Also, as recovery efforts go on, it is mostly going to demand folks who possess construction skills.

As a local pastor or as a local congregation, it takes keeping your eyes and ears open for just the right opportunity to materialize, but in general the reality is that we are simply going to have to rely on groups from outside the area to come here and help us out. And that’s OK, after all, we are all a part of the body of Christ.

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2.) As always Jan raises good observations and questions about the nature of staffing in the established church today. I’d love for her to be a colleague in this presbytery, as we need to hear more of her voice…

3.) Tony Campolo presents what seems like a reasonable, faithful response to the problem of abortion in our country.

4.) How many of the 100 NEA Recommended books of fiction have you read? I’ve read book #6, but I’m not really sure why it’s considered a “work of fiction.”

5.) Today I’ve decided to point to a few of my recent favorite photos from my flickr contacts. I particularly love the lighting in this one and the depth of field in this one.

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The impetus of my sermon was that as a congregation we can no longer afford to focus on our current 94 members, instead we need to begin to focus on our next 94 members.

To me, that means a lot of things. Some of them entail 1.) no longer giving money and calling it “mission,” 2.) no longer designing worship services and other programs just with our members ‘needs’ in mind, and 3.) inviting friends to join us and having places (small groups) where people can plug in and learn about the faith from our current members.

Two comments following my sermon struck me as indicators that we have a long way to go and that I have a lot of work to do to help us get this missional focus thing down….

Last year we decided to no longer pay for our church to advertise in our local newspaper in the religion section on Saturday morning…Part of the reason? 1.) The only people who look at those ads are our church members. It makes them feel good when they see it, but that’s about the limits of their effectiveness, 2.) We decided to invest our time and money in a website.

In response to my sermon, someone said to me yesterday that we really need to put that ad back in the newspaper. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this…the underlying assumption is that spending a few bucks on advertising is what is going to grow the kingdom and bring people to visit our church. Unfortunately, I think its a way to absolve the members from having to do anything to be a part of helping the church to grow, and that’s not missional thinking…

The second comment I heard was “I don’t have any friends who don’t go to church, so I must be hanging out in the right crowds!?!” The answer is no, and again, that’s not missional thinking. You really need to have some friends in your circles who are not Christian…if this church is going to grow it’s going to be by your listening to others no matter where they are in their faith journey, inviting them to think about the faith, and asking them come join us as we explore this thing together.

I’m realizing this moving to a missional focus is a monumental change. It’s a big change for me as I begin to think about my ministry differently and as I think about what it’s going to require in my preaching and leadership within this congregation. It’s also a big change for this congregation.

But, I’m becoming more and more convinced that if we’re going to have any success together then we all have got to change our focus. That focus needs to be missional, and its direction needs to be outward, toward the world around us.

Please pray for me and for us!

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If you care, there are also a few flood related photos from downtown Cedar Rapids I took yesterday over at Flickr.

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Since coming on the stage in the mid-1960’s as the boy-struck, barefoot surfer girl in the TV series called Gidget, Sally Field, has been one of America’s favorite and most endearing actresses.

Over the years, Field won two academy awards, the first one in 1979 which she won for her work as a union organizer in the movie Norma Rae. The second one came in 1985 for her starring role in the film, Places of the Heart.

You might remember her acceptance speech for that second Academy award. It’s one of the most memorable of all time. On stage to accept the award she said:

I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!

Over the years the last phrase of that speech has taken on a life of its own. In its misquoted form, “You like me, you really like me!” has become the subject of comedy skits. Even, Sally Field poked fun at herself in a commercial with that memorable line.

Perhaps, one reason why Sally Field’s speech has taken on a life of its own has resonated in our culture is that most of us can identify with her.

Here she is one of the most successful and accomplished actresses at the pinnacle of her career. She’s celebrating her greatest personal triumph, receiving the most prestigious award possible not for the first time, but for the second time, and what does she do?

She point blank admits in front of those TV cameras broadcasting all over the county, that in spite of her first award she didn’t feel worthy. She didn’t feel respected. She didn’t feel liked.

Wow. Sally Field said that?

Her words resonate with us because if she feels like that at the highest point of her career, then maybe its okay for the rest of us in the circumstances of our own lives to feel that way too.

In that speech, Sally Field hit on one of the truths of being human right on the head: Being liked is something that most if not all of us are concerned about. We want people to like us. We hope and wish for them to respect us.

In fact many of us are so concerned about being liked that we totally organize our lives and the things we do in an effort to please others. We spend so much time trying to get others to like us, or to keep them liking us. We hope and long for others to love and respect us.

And if we can’t actually be good enough for others to like us, we’ll put on a façade to make it look like we are good enough. We’ll put on airs and do whatever it takes to make it look like we are better than we really are.

We’ll work hard to make it seem like we are genuinely nice, kind, and good people even when we know the truth is that we are rotten on the inside.

Even if we are good, kind, and decent people - at least most of the time - and even if there are people around us who really do like us, enjoy our company, and respect us we, like Sally Field, still have a hard time believing that it’s true.

Today’s discipleship question in our sermon series is, “Who are you?”

For those of us who are Christians, the first answer to that question ought to be automatic. We ought to be able to say, “I am someone who is infinitely loved of God.” OR “I am someone who God who looks at and says of me, I like you, I really like you.”

But deep down inside, most of us don’t really believe it. We doubt that God really likes us. We can’t believe that in fact God really loves us, to the very core of our being. We doubt we are someone who is worthy of being loved.

Most of us don’t feel it or believe it because we have something at work within us that keeps us from recognizing or knowing the depth of God’s love for us. That something that is at work within us is called shame.

Now, shame is not about something bad we did or about something we shouldn’t have said, that’s guilt and that’s a different thing all together. Shame is a feeling about who we are. It is a feeling that we are unworthy and totally unacceptable. Shame is a feeling that no one could love us.

Shame is what we feel when we’re sitting in church and we’re supposed to be listening to the sermon and we find that our mind is wandering all over the place.

We might be daydreaming about how we can get back at that annoying relative, or wishing that our business rival would get caught cheating, or what a wonderful and incredible thing an evening would be with Dr. McDreamy or Angelina Jolie. {Now, don’t tell me you’ve never dreamed about that.}

We might be worrying about our life that seems like a disaster, thinking about how our family is falling apart, or that we’re not doing a good enough job caring for our ailing mother, or wishing that life would just hurry up and end so we won’t have to deal with so much crap.

With all those things swimming around in our head, when it comes time for us to pray, or when we think about our relationship with God, we can’t, because we think to ourselves, “How could God possibly reach down here and love me right now, since he knows about the wreck that is my life and all about the sewer that is my imagination?”

With those thoughts, we find it impossible to believe that we could ever be loved, adored, accepted, called, or commissioned by God. We can’t possibly see ourselves as beloved children of God.

These feelings of shame, of unworthiness, of feeling unacceptable are a far cry from what the Apostle Paul desires for the believers in the church at Ephesus. They also are a far cry from what I desire for you as your pastor.

In this, my all time favorite passage from scripture which Lori and I had read at our wedding, the Apostle Paul prays that the believers in Ephesus might:

have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine what life would be like if we truly believed and if we really grasped, as the NIV puts it, how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ? Imagine how different things would be if we really understood the depth of God’s infinite love is for us.

If we believed it, we wouldn’t have to try so hard to get God to love us. We wouldn’t have to go around thinking about all the things we should do but fail to get done. We wouldn’t have to go around beating ourselves up for thinking or doing things we know we shouldn’t.

The funny – or maybe sad - thing is that the church often doesn’t do a good job of helping people deal with their shame. It often fails to help people live a life that flows out of a relationship based on God’s love and grace.

In fact last week, as I was finishing up my sermon I went back over it and realized the number of times I used the word should. Even though the sermon was about God’s grace, love, and forgiveness and our call to live out Christ’s teachings, my first draft was littered with “we should do this and we should do that.”

So I went back and revised it, taking out all the “shoulds,” because that word lays on a burden of shame. It makes us feel guilty and it makes us grovel on the ground over the hundreds of different ways we fail to measure up. It makes us feel unworthy and unacceptable.

But, the church “shoulds” people all the time. The church says:

* You should attend worship every Sunday.
* You should read your bible and pray.
* You should become an elder or a deacon or serve on a committee.
* You should give some money so that the church can meet its budget.
* You should be out in the world in mission and doing social justice.

Now, there are, of course, things that a Christian is expected to do, things that a Christian is expected to think and ways they are expected to behave. And there are things that aren’t really supposed to be part of the Christian life.

The Christian life, after all, is about new birth and living a new life. It’s about transformation. But the Christian life is not rooted in a list of dos and don’ts. It’s not grounded in a list of things we should or should not do.

Instead, it is rooted and grounded in the reality of God’s love. It’s founded in our union with Jesus Christ. The fundamental reality of the Christian life is that we are beloved Children of God, and living the Christian life flows out of that reality.

That’s the point that the Apostle Paul is trying to make in his prayer when he says:

I pray that God might grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

Paul’s point is that living the Christian life is not about exerting our own power, strength, and will to do all the right things, think the right thoughts, or avoid all the wrong things. It’s not about keeping a checklist and wondering if we measure up or not.

Instead, it’s about being rooted and grounded in God’s love and having Christ’s power and strength at work within us, helping us, leading us, and guiding us in living the way that God desire’s for us to life.

One of my favorite spiritual authors, Brennan Manning, in his book “Lion and Lamb” tells a story that he heard from one of his professors in seminary. His old Dutch professor began his story by saying:

I am one of thirteen children. One day I was out playing and I got thirsty and went into the house for a glass of water. My father had just come home for lunch and was talking with a neighbor. My father didn’t know that I was there and so I listened in on the conversation.

The neighbor said to my father, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time, but if it’s too personal, just forget I ever asked it. You have thirteen children, out of all of them, is there one that is your favorite? One you love more than all the others?”

I leaned in to listen to my father’s answer hoping of course to hear that I was his favorite child. My father responding saying, “Sure, that’s easy. There is one I love more than all the others.”

“That’s Mary, the twelve year old. She just got braces on her teeth and feels so awkward and embarrassed that she won’t even leave the house.”

“Oh, but you asked about my favorite. Well, that’s my 23 year old Peter. His fiancée just broke their engagement, and he is so desolate and heartbroken.”

“But the one I really love most is little Michael. He’s totally uncoordinated and terrible in any sport he tries to play. The other kids on the street make fun of him.”

“But then of course, the apple of my eye is Susan. She’s only 24, living in her own apartment, and developing a drinking problem. I cry for Susan. But I guess of all the kids…”

My father went on and mentioned all thirteen of us, name by name; saying how much he loved each one of us.

Manning says the professor then ended his story by saying:

What I learned was that the one my father loved most was the one who needed him most at the time. And that’s the way the Father of Jesus is: He loves those most who need Him most, who rely on Him, depend upon Him, and trust Him in everything.

Little He cares whether you’ve been as pure as St. John or as sinful as Mary Magdalene. All that matters is trust. It seems to me that learning how to trust God defines the meaning of Christian living. God doesn’t wait until we have our moral life in order before He starts loving us.

Paul’s prayer for the believers in Ephesus is also my prayer for you. It’s my prayer that in response to the question, “Who are you?” that you would be able to boldly and confidently say that you are a beloved child of God and that you might know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how long, how wide, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ for you.

I pray that you might be able to say, in the words of Sally Field, “God likes me, he really likes me.” To the praise and glory of our gracious and loving God, now and forever, Amen.

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As you probably know by now, I like to read the comic strips in the Gazette. One that has quickly become my favorite is called Frazz. It follows the story of a fitness freak who is a twenty-something janitor at a local elementary school.

This week one of the young students at the school was searching for a four leaf clover, hoping to find a little luck. Well, on Friday, she finally found her lucky four leaf clover. So, she decided to show it to Mrs. Olsen, her teacher who is a bit of a curmudgeon.

As you might expect, Mrs. Olsen responds to the student’s excitement and enthusiasm over her discovery by dousing water on it. Mrs. Olsen says, “Bah, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in work.”

In the next frame, the young student and Frazz are talking about this incident and the student says to Frazz, “Apparently buying 30 lotto tickets a week is “work.”

I love it. That young student has connected the dots between what her teacher says she believes and what her teacher actually does.

She knows that Mrs. Olsen buys lottery tickets, perhaps in the hopes of being freed from her job. And while Mrs. Olsen says she believes in work, by her behavior the student can see that she really believes or hopes in luck.

That student has figured out that how a person behaves and what a person does is a better barometer of what a person really believes than what they say they believe.

Max DePree, a businessman and an author of many books on leadership, often says that belief shapes practice. If you want to know what a person truly believes deep down inside, all you have to do is examine the way they behave.

Perhaps more personally said: If you want to know what you truly believe deep down inside, all you have to do is examine the way you behave; all you have to do is look at what you do.

While Mrs. Olsen says she believes in hard work, she buys lottery tickets, hoping to never have to work again. Someone else might say that they believe in truth, but when they face difficult circumstances, they repeatedly lie to gain an advantage. Their real belief, despite what they may claim, is not truth, it is something else.

Every one of us has a set of assumed beliefs. We have a pretty good idea of the things we think we believe. But then everyone also has a set of real beliefs which are revealed or made known through the things we actually do.

If you hang around someone long enough, you’ll figure out what it is they really believe. Sometimes it might agree with the things they say they believe, and other times it might be something totally and completely different.

That’s part of what Jesus is saying in today’s scripture passage.

Jesus says that some people will claim to call him Lord, some of them might even do certain charismatic and flashy deeds in his name, but when it comes right down to it, they are not really of him, they have not done God’s will.

If you hang around long enough, you’ll see that while the house they built might look good and sturdy on the outside underneath it has no foundation. The rains will come, the waters will rise, and the house will fall apart, because the house was not built on something that was solid, instead it was built on sand.

They might listen to Jesus’ words, they might say they believe them, they might call Jesus their Lord and Master, but when it comes down to it, they do not act on what he says. When it’s all said and done, all they will have to account for their empty words is a pile of washed up timber.

Today’s passage concludes Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and it summarizes what Jesus expects of those who hear it. He warns his disciples, and others who hear it, to not just say they are nice words or a wonderful teaching and to leave it at that.

Instead he wants all those, who claim him as their Lord, to put these words into practice. He wants them to live them out. Jesus says that those who call him Lord will make good on their belief by making these words a part of who they are.

I recently heard of a Pastor who every year, takes the season of Lent to memorize the entire Sermon on the Mount. Each year it gets easier and easier as he recalls more and more of what he memorized during the previous year.

On Palm Sunday the Pastor recites the whole sermon to his congregation during the morning worship. He says it all from memory, delivering it as closely as he can to how he thinks Jesus might have delivered it.

People in that church love it. They look forward to it every year. They are moved to tears, emotionally impacted and touched by hearing these remarkable words of Jesus recited orally. I bet it’s also a moving experience for that Pastor, memorizing all those words and reciting them in front of his entire congregation.

But if that is as far as the Sermon on the Mount goes, if that is all that happens, if people do nothing more than listen and be amazed, or if that pastor does little more than take the time to memorize them, then they simply have not done enough.

Saying “Lord, Lord” and then doing nothing doesn’t quite cut it.

If we truly believe him and if we truly believe the words he taught, we will find ways to put what he says into practice. We will let Jesus’ words inform us, shape us, lead us, guide us, and instruct us in how we will live our lives.

That’s what Jesus wants of his disciples. He wants them to live lives that match what they say they believe.

Jesus wants people who don’t just say they are committed to social justice, or to helping the poor, or to praying, or to living the truly spiritual life. He wants people who actually do those things.

Now there is one danger here…It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking Jesus promotes some sort of works-righteousness program. A program of self-justification that earns our salvation through the things we do.

We can begin to think that if we do these things, if we live out what we say we believe, then we will somehow earn our way into heaven and God will somehow find us acceptable.

But that’s not the point at all.

Smack dab in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount is something called the “Lord’s Prayer.” It is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray saying “Our Father.”

The foundation of the Lord’s Prayer, the basis of what Jesus taught, is that his disciples are already in a relationship with God. They are to pray to God the Father who already loves them and cares for them. As Jesus’ disciples, they are already God’s children.

So our discipleship, the things we do, the way we shape our lives, is rooted in the context of our relationship with God. Doing what Jesus says is not a way to earn that relationship with God. Instead, it is how we live in response to what God has already given to each one of us in Jesus Christ.

A few weeks ago, I ran across an article on a ministry website. It was called the “Top 5 Volunteer No-Nos.” It had a lot of great ideas about the best ways that church leadership can approach and talk with people who volunteer to do various jobs in the church.

I read it and thought the article provided some great and helpful thoughts. But the more I thought about that article, the more I began to think that there is something seriously wrong with referring to people who do stuff in the church as volunteers.

I mean, Jesus did not call the twelve volunteers, did he? {He might have if he had been in Tennessean….but that’s a different story.} No, the last time I checked he called the twelve disciples. And he calls us to be disciples as well.

The problem with using the word volunteer in church is that it implies the things we do in the church, as a disciple of Jesus, are optional. It implies that belief is separate from the things we do. It implies that faith is separate from action.

Today after the sermon, we are having our teacher recognition and appreciation. We will recognize those who have served the church in the past year as Sunday school teachers, as children’s worship leaders, and as youth leaders.

Now, we could thank them for volunteering to do what they have done this past year and we could just leave it at that. But I think there is much more to it than that:
I would prefer for us appreciate these people for the ways they have put their faith in action.

I would hope that we would recognize them for responding to their relationship with God and expressing their disciple to Jesus by serving the church in this way.

I desire us to honor them for acting on what they believe, through teaching others, or leading children’s worship, or heading up the youth group.

Their service should be seen as an outgrowth of their relationship with God. It should be viewed as an expression of discipleship flowing out of the grace and peace that God has extended to each of them as children of God.

There is one other thing that the Lord’s Prayer reminds us. In the middle of the prayer are the words “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Those words remind us that God continually extends his arms of grace and forgiveness when we screw things up. God forgives us:

* When we act in ways that are contrary to God’s will.
* When we fall back on our sinful tendencies and fail to live as God intends for us to live.
* When we don’t live as we say we believe.

The reality is that God loves us too much to simply say those things are okay and that they don’t matter. God loves us too much to let us stay the way we are. God desires for us to do better.

In his book, “The Disciple Making Church,” Presbyterian pastor Glenn MacDonald identifies three primary values in American culture. They are possessions, pleasures, and power.

In his words:

the highest values of our society are having nice stuff, having a good time, and having control – feeling good, looking good, and making good.

Even for those of us who are Christians, these values are such a part of who we are we can’t even recognize them. We have difficulty seeing how they have become a part of the church and how they inform the ways we think about discipleship.

The reality is that these three things – power, possessions, and pleasure - inform the way that most Christians think about Jesus. I’m willing to bet that the typical Christian thinks of Jesus as:

the advocate for our way of life. He comes to us promising that our businesses will make lots of money if only we do a little Bible study every week. He assures us that if families pray together, they will never suffer major problems. If we give away our discretionary income, we don’t have to think seriously about the poor.

In short, many Christians think that Jesus’ main mission is to comfort us and to fulfill our dreams. They think that Jesus is simply here to make us happy.

But the question that is the title of today’s sermon, “Who is your Lord?” is not really about what we want and what Jesus will do for us. It’s about what Jesus wants for us. It’s about a life of grace that God has given us as a gift in order for us to do what Jesus wants.

Those who see Jesus as their Lord will ask, “What is it that Jesus wants?” They will look at their lives and the situations they face each and every day and they will ask, “Lord, what is it that you want?”

One thing we know that Jesus wants is justice. So we might ask how we can help bring about economic justice in a world were the difference between the haves and the have-nots grows larger and larger each day?

We know that Jesus wants truth. So we might ask how to speak truth when everyone else at our place of work is lying to cover up the firm’s bad business practices.

We know that Jesus wants reconciliation. So we might ask how to take the first step to make things right in those relationships where everything feels so wrong.

If you want to know the answer to the question “Who is your Lord?” then go ahead and take a look at the things you do. Are they the things that you want to do, or are they the things that God would want you to do?

This morning we will come to this table which symbolizes all that Jesus Christ gave up in order to walk with us, to be with us, and to lead us into relationship with God. Remember, at this table, God extends to us grace and forgiveness. It is a gift, freely given, so that in turn we might life our lives doing what Jesus wants.

Thanks be to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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1.) I enjoyed this little analysis of the difference between a non-denominational worship service and a mainline worship service, which speaks well for what’s going on in some mainline churches.

2.) Seems that people are trying to sell all sorts of things these days. Tim Merrill writes about one fella decided to sell his entire life.

3.) For your photo of the week: Who says graffiti can’t be beautiful?

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My experience as a commissioner to this year’s GA was a bit different than most. For my committee work, which is what the first part of a week at GA involves, I was assigned to the “Worship and Spiritual Renewal” Committee.

My experience was different because two different committees were given the commission to run their business in a different manner. Following the suggestion of an overture passed by the previous General Assembly to practice some different models of decision making, the GA offices decided to have two committees employ a consensus building, discernment model.

Committee work at GA is hard enough already. When you mix 50 to 60 people together in a room who don’t each other and then you consider the different theological commitments combined with personal agendas that exist in a group that size, you are waiting for a disaster to happen.

Which is why Parliamentary Procedure works so well. People get to make motions, they can put their ideas on the table and see what the rest of the group thinks, and while the minority might not get its way in the end at least they had their say.

When the idea of working with a model for discernment and consensus building was introduced to our group, people freaked. They were uncomfortable, either because they didn’t know or simply didn’t like the rules. As time went on, some felt like their voice was not being heard. Others were hurt by the process, expressed their pain, and left it all together. It took us a full two days to work through our paltry list of two items of business.

I am a pastor in a small church. To me that seems like an appropriate place to operate using models of discernment and consensus building. In fact we hardly use parliamentary procedure at all to run our session meetings. It works because people already have a relationship with one another. They know that when they speak they will be heard. No one is trying to figure out each others agendas or theological leanings.

However, based on my experience as a GA lab rat, I’m not so sure that it’s such a good idea at General Assembly.

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As I was preparing my sermon this week, I discovered that June 28th marked the beginning of the “Year of Saint Paul.”

Starting this last week, the Roman Catholic Church is taking an entire year to celebrate one of the most prominent figures in the New Testament. They chose this year of all years because it’s as close as anyone can guess to the 2000th anniversary of Paul’s Birthday.

The Apostle Paul probably deserves an entire year of celebration, because when it comes to prominent figures in the New Testament, he is usually the first one who comes to mind. After all, many of the great books of the New Testament, like Romans and Galatians, were written by him. He also plays a big part of the story in the book of Acts.

In fact, a few years ago, I read an article in some magazine like Time or Newsweek that featured a list of history’s most influential people. I remember the article, because I was surprised to see that the Apostle Paul made that list while Jesus Christ did not.

The article defended its choice of Paul over Jesus saying that without Paul’s influence, the church as we know it would probably not exist today. Without the Apostle Paul, its quite possible that no one today would even know who Jesus Christ was.

While Paul had a profoundly positive influence on the early church, it wasn’t always that way. If you know anything about Paul’s story you might recall that when we first hear of him in the book of Acts he is actually an enemy of the early church.

One of the first stories is an account of the stoning of an early Christian named Stephen. In the middle of that story, Luke, the author of Acts, hints ever so slightly that Saul – as he was known before his conversion – was present and might even have played a role in making it happen.

Now, regardless of whether or not he actually had a hand in Stephen’s stoning, Saul was definitely known by the early Christians as one who went from house to house looking for women and men to throw into prison because of their faith in Jesus. As a Jewish Zealot, he was an avid persecutor of the early Christians.

So, how did it happen? How did Saul, a man who breathed threats against the church, who exercised warrants to hunt down Christians and to throw them in Jail; how did Paul who was not even one of the original disciples, come to have such a huge influence on the church?

What you may or may not be aware of is that there is a significant back story here. It’s a story that includes another influential character by the name of Barnabas, and without his role in the story, the Apostle Paul might never have become the disciple and leader that he came to be.

We first meet Barnabas in the 4th Chapter of Acts.

It is the early days of the Jesus movement and the tiny group of believers who knew Jesus in his earthly life and ministry has exploded well beyond the original 12 disciples and the few others who followed him.

In that chapter, Luke introduces us to a man by the name of Joseph and proceeds to tell us that he demonstrates his faith and belief in Jesus Christ by selling some land he owns and bringing the proceeds to the apostles for the church to use.

This is the last time we actually hear of this particular man in the book of Acts – at least by his name of Joseph - because from this point onward he is known as “Barnabas,” which Luke tells us means “Son of Encouragement.”

Now, as often happens with various characters in the Bible, the name that is given to a person describes something about him or her. So Luke tells us that this person formerly known as Joseph is now called “Barnabas” because he plays the role of an encourager to others in the early church.

This first story of Barnabas selling his land and bringing his profits to the apostles is contrasted with a story that follows of Ananias and Sapphira who also sell some of their own land.

But unlike Barnabas, these two lie to the Apostles and bring just a small portion of the money they make off the sale of their land. It’s a dramatic story because when each one is independently confronted about their lying to the apostles, both of them collapse and die at their feet.

By contrasting these two stories, Luke invites us to see that Barnabas doesn’t just talk up his faith or make a show of it. Instead he is an example of someone who actually acts on and lives it out. By his living example - by living out and acting on his faith in Jesus - he becomes an encouragement to others to do the same.

But there are other reasons that Barnabas is known as the son of encouragement, and one of those reasons has everything to do with the Apostle Paul, formerly known as Saul.

The story of Saul begins with him traveling around the region looking to drag believers in Jesus off to prison. One day as he’s traveling on the Damascus Road he is confronted by a vision of this Jesus and is dramatically converted to faith. And in a moment, he becomes one of the very same folks he is trying to persecute.

Now, as you might imagine, after such a sudden conversion, Saul runs into a little bit of trouble getting anyone to believe him. Because of his past, he has a bit of an image problem that not even a change of name from Saul to Paul can overcome.

Up to this point the believers have always known and feared Saul as one trying to hunt them down. In fact, Luke tells us that after Saul’s conversion the disciples in Jerusalem were afraid of him. They wondered if they could really believe. They thought maybe it was just some sort of ruse to let him in so that he could root them out.

Luckily for Paul, his image problem and checkered past wasn’t that much of a concern for Barnabas. Barnabas dared to take Paul under his wing, to encourage him in his new found faith, and to help him along on his journey.

Now as Luke tells his story, he doesn’t explicitly say this, but surely Paul and Barnabas sat down over coffee and talked things through.

They must have met together a number of times, with Barnabas listening to Paul’s story and trying to discern whether or not he was for real. Surely, Barnabas took him under his wing and they talked about what it meant for Paul to be a disciple and what this new life and faith might look like.

And when the moment was right and Barnabas was fully convinced of the authenticity of Paul’s conversion and new found faith, Barnabas took him to the disciples in Jerusalem. He shared his story with them and pleaded Paul’s case before them.

Barnabas vouched for Paul’s character and story and told the disciples that this fledgling disciple could be trusted. In short he went to bat for him and told the disciples that Paul was living a new and changed life.

Now, let’s jump ahead a few years later, Paul is laboring away in relative obscurity in Tarsus, his home town. He is presumably sharing the gospel with his family and friends. He’s telling them the story of his conversion and trying to convince them to share his new found faith in Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, the gospel is advancing in Antioch, and once again Barnabas, a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, is in the thick of things.

The disciples in Jerusalem decide to send him off to Antioch to check things out and upon his arrival he discovers that there is a great deal of ministry work that needs to be done. He also realizes that he can’t do the work alone.

So what does he do? He remembers Paul and heads off to Tarsus to find him and to encourage him to join him in his work. Doing so, they spend an entire year together in Antioch laboring for the gospel and teaching all those who became Christians.

Barnabas recognized, in Paul, the skills and gifts that would make him a successful co-laborer for the gospel. He saw the exceptional, God given gifts and abilities Paul possessed, and when the time was right, he helped Paul find a way to use them and to employ them for the glory of God.

Barnabas encouraged Paul to share those gifts with those who needed them, and because of that work of encouragement, that willingness to help him along his way, the Apostle Paul grew in stature and prominence.

There is little doubt that Paul became the great leader and influencer in the early church that we all know about, because of his relationship with Barnabas. In fact, when it comes to that list of most influential people in history, maybe that honor shouldn’t go to Paul…

Perhaps it should go instead to the one person who stood behind the Apostle Paul, the one who started it all; Barnabas, the son of encouragement.

The story of Barnabas and Paul reveals one of the most important aspects of being a disciple:

Those who wish to follow Jesus need to have someone, or a number of people, who can be like Barnabas for them. We all need folks who can encourage us and help us in the various ways that Barnabas helped the Apostle Paul.

In his book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard points out that all of us learn how to live – for better or for worse – from those who teach us. Each of us is somebody’s disciple. Dallas says:

There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live.

We learn from our parents, our teachers, our friends, our supervisors. Each one of us has people who surround us who we learn from.

One of the great failures of the church today is that we have lost our commitment to discipling and mentoring each other. We’ve forgotten about learning from and following in the footsteps of others. We’ve abandoned having others help us on our journey. We’ve failed to allow others to show us what it means to live a life of faith and to be a disciple of Jesus.

Today’s discipleship question, number three out of six is, Who is your Barnabas? Who is your mentor? Who in your life acts like a Barnabas to you?

Who in your life is an example of living out the faith? Do you have someone in your life like Barnabas who doesn’t just talk about his of her faith, but who actually acts on it and lives it out. Do they help you by their example see how you too can live out and act on your own faith?

Who in your life do you share your story with? Do you have someone in your life like Barnabas was for Paul who takes you under their wing and shares with you what it means to be a disciple? Do they listen to you and encourage you when the going gets tough and help you as you seek to live out your life of faith?

And finally, who in your life knows you well enough to push you to recognize your God given gifts and abilities? Do you have someone in your life like Barnabas who helps you identify what your gifts are and where they may best be used in God’s Kingdom? Do they push you to take risks to put those gifts to use in places where the world needs them?

Friends, if you want to grow in your faith, if you want to deepen in your commitment to share the love of God with others in word and deed, if you want to intentionally work on your relationship with God and to become more life Jesus, then I would suggest that you seek out someone who can become a Barnabas to you.

Who knows, maybe if you find someone in your life like Barnabas who can influence you, maybe you, like the Apostle Paul, will become one of the church’s and the world’s most influential people?

May God grace you with the lavish gift of a Son or Daughter of Encouragement to walk alongside you and to help you on this journey of life and faith, so that in all things God may be glorified. Now and forever, Amen.

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Now, thanks to this sage advice from Jake Bouma, I have updated my blogroll. From here on out, it will remain updated due to the great features available with Google Reader.

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