Pastor John’s Blog

There’s something powerful about committing to pray intentionally for someone over the course of a year. That’s why I’m excited about what God will do in our church through a prayer effort Colby launched between our senior adults and students last Sunday. Each student was partnered with a senior adult who committed to pray for them over the next year. I’ve already been encouraged to hear of the connections that have been established in one Sunday across generations in our church.

Ian Hamilton said, “Usefulness to God grows in the soil of self-effacing humility.” Andrew emphasized the importance of humility Sunday, referencing 2 Chronicles 7:14, which says, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Sunday we began the service by calling out challenges we face throughout the week and then calling out Jesus’ name, declaring His name and His power over the struggle. I don’t know about you, but many times I let a struggle or sin linger and fester longer than I should and give it more room than it should have in my life. But spiritual warfare is not complex. All you have to do is stop and call out the name of Jesus. He is there, always nearby, just waiting for us to cry out for him. He’s always working even when we are not aware of how close His presence is.

It was about ten years ago that a co-worker coerced me into cycling. I had always enjoyed mountain biking, but never tried riding much on the road. I was shocked by two things: how much fun it was, and how blazing fast some guys were. One guy in particular was impossible to keep up with. He had been an all-American swimmer in college and was super fast on the bike. He also worked really hard at it. He would post his rides on social media all the time, showing how much effort he put forth to build his fitness. Until he didn’t. One day he completely stopped posting his rides. I assumed he was still riding, just not posting about it, but every once in a while I’d check in on him and still find nothing, until a few months ago. He started riding again, but now he was a lot slower, more like my speed. In one of his recent posts he wrote the phrase “Fitness is for rent,” meaning, you can’t ‘buy’ fitness once and keep it forever, no, you have to pay rent daily to keep and build your fitness.

Last week I was cleaning out part of my closet and ran across my high school yearbook for the first time in probably twenty years. I had a few minutes so I glanced through the pages. So many names and faces I had completely forgotten! I read the notes that people had written in the front and back. I looked at the dress and styles and hairdos, admiring my mullet with no gray. When I finally put it down and turned back to the closet reorg project, there was a lingering sense of discouragement. That glance back in time brought back many missed opportunities to invest in others. I was reminded that my focus then was not on serving others and sharing Christ, in fact, I wanted others to serve me and build me up. I guess we all want that, but it saddened me to be reminded of a season of life that was overly self-focused. 

It doesn’t really help to be going fast if you’re pointed in the wrong direction. Sometimes in life you have to pause and make sure you are headed in the right direction.

I guess everyone has their thing – the thing that fills their thoughts when there’s nothing actively capturing their attention – the thing your mind wanders to when you let it run free. The thing you love to think about when you have a few minutes in between the things you know you have to do. For you it might be tubes or knitting or softball or cooking or baseball cards, or… books.

Just as in English, the word “saved” in the original language of the New Testament (Greek) has a range of meanings. It can mean being physically rescued from danger, like if a fireman pulls you from a burning car, or a stranger in Shoney’s gives you the Heimlich to dislodge a section of steak gristle. When we use it in church, we usually mean that someone has been rescued from the penalty of sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of course with any “churchy” words we use (such as justification, sanctification, propitiation, sovereignty), we risk alienating someone who hasn’t yet learned what they mean. That’s why it’s good to take the time to define your terms, while also not discarding some of the words that help summarize profound theological truths.

Tonight we enter into another season of Fall ministry– D-Groups, AWANA, Student Ministry, all kick off TONIGHT. Of course, given we’ve had a summer break, there might be some rough going in the first week or two as we sort out rooms and tech needs and get everyone registered, but that’s okay – it’s all part of it. Sometimes you just have to push that raft out into the current and get moving in the right direction.

They say that in a triathlon it’s the transitions that make or break you. That’s where you have to make sure to keep moving and not lose time when changing from swimming clothes, to bike gear, and finally into running attire. In my brief two-event triathlon career, I believed in theory that the transitions needed to be fast, but in practice, after swimming hard in freezing open water and no wetsuit, I watched everyone run past my exhausted carcass while I fought just to walk up the sandy hill to the transition zone. I was more beached whale than blazing athlete. In theory the transitions are fast. In reality this transition zone was looking like a great place to stay a while, eat some snacks, and re-evaluate my life choices.