Prayer for Mission in Namibia

This week we pray for Loletta Barrett, our missionary to Namibia, who serves as a local pastor in Kalkfeld, Namibia.

You can read more about the mission to Namibia here, including the story of how a congregation can serve as a community center.

There are Christian missionaries serving on our behalf in many countries around the world.  Each week, Global Missions highlights the work in one of these countries and asks the wider church to pray for its continued vitality in spreading the Gospel.

Coming Up Sunday, September 29

This week, we'll continue our fall sermon series about Jesus, based on the Gospel of John.  Last Sunday, we were invited to "come and see" what Jesus is all about.  This week, we'll follow the story of Nicodemus, who visited Jesus at night -- ostensibly, in secret -- to ask what is the essential point of Jesus' visible signs and miracles.

In "Come and See: What to Look For," we'll consider Jesus answer, which revolves around two things.  First, Jesus has come to offer people a new way of being in the world, which he describes as a spiritual rebirth -- rebirth because it is different from how people live before, spiritual because it is rooted in wisdom beyond human knowledge.   Second, one way of testing this new way of life, in oneself and in watching others, is to see how they act and live.  Those who have been changed live their lives in such a way as to be seen in the light -- that is, in the truth of Christ.

We'll also continue our prayer vigil, "Light a Candle for Children," praying for the special needs of children in our community and around the world.  We will also accept a special offering to support the Reconciliation Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

September 22 Worship: "Come and See: Invitations to Follow"

We enjoyed our Fall Kick-Off Sunday, complete with lots of good company, beautiful weather, and some wonderful music in worship -- including a great version of "Peace in the Valley" by the choir.  After worship, we gathered for a warm lunch, with all sorts of wonderful food and too many desserts.

On Sunday, we also kicked off our fall sermon series on the Gospel of John -- "Come and See: The Promise of Following Jesus."  This series will explore the recurring theme of "come and see" in John.  This week, we explored the introduction of this theme in the story of Jesus' first disciples, who follow Jesus to see what he is all about.  The sermon, "Come and See: Invitations to Follow" was an introduction to the series -- a reminder that we too are invited to follow Jesus the man, not simply the prophesied Messiah.  Understanding that Jesus is the Christ -- God's chosen one -- is important in causing us to pay attention -- but we will learn different things about God by noticing how Jesus' lives and acts.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you'd like to share it with others, there is an audio recording here.

You can also listen to Sunday's communion meditation here.

Prayer for Mission in Japan

This week we pray for Jeffrey Mensendiek, our missionary to Japan, who serves as director of youth activities at the Emmaus Center in Sendai.

You can read more about the mission to Japan here, including the story of ongoing counseling and assistance in the aftermath of the nuclear reactor shutdown due to the tsunami in 2011.

There are Christian missionaries serving on our behalf in many countries around the world.  Each week, Global Missions highlights the work in one of these countries and asks the wider church to pray for its continued vitality in spreading the Gospel.

Coming Up Sunday, September 22

This Sunday, we are having our special "Fall Kick-Off" at Eastgate.  It should be an exciting day, complete with a potluck dinner after worship.

During worship, I'll begin my fall sermon series on Jesus, based on the Gospel of John -- "Come and See: The Promise of Following Jesus."  For seven weeks, we'll consider this repeated theme of "come and see" and explore some of its shadings and meanings for us as disciples of Jesus Christ.  This week, we'll begin with accepting the invitation to come and see, just like the first disciples, as recorded in John 1 -- "Come and See: Invitations to Follow."

September 15 Worship: "What We Owe Our Children"

We gathered Sunday for a special worship service focusing on children.  We had a special parable at the beginning of worship, "The Sunflower Parable," and we had a special prayer to mark the "Light a Candle for Children" 40-day vigil.  We also highlighted some of our programs for children and youth, including Children Worship & Wonder and F.A.C.E. (Faith Activities for the Children of Eastgate) Time.

The sermon considered "What We Owe Our Children" as a Christian community.  Drawing from Proverbs 4, which speaks about the importance of wisdom, I suggested that some of the most important Christian wisdom we can offer children is about the value of time.  In particular, in our busy culture, I suggested the importance of time and space for children to dare to ask questions (of us or of God) and how the wider culture is taking away this time and space from everyone.

Sabbath time is a gift of God for all people, but we are carefully removing all unscheduled time from our lives -- even from the lives of our children. This is not God's desire for us, and it is not in following the example of Jesus' own earthly life.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, of if you'd like to share it with others, you can find an audio recording here.

Light a Candle for Children Prayer Vigil

At Eastgate we are participating with Christians around the country who are praying for children during the upcoming weeks.  The "Light a Candle for Children" prayer vigil is designed to remind Christians of the challenges and dangers that face children in our communities, our country, and around the world.

A group of ministers have prepared daily devotions to assist those who are praying during the Light a Candle for Children vigil.  There are many ways to read or receive these devotions online.

You may read the devotions, posted daily, here.  Also, on the top right of this page, you can sign up to receive the devotions each day by email.  You may also follow through a special Facebook page or you may follow @pray4children on Twitter.

Prayer for Mission in Indonesia

This week we pray for Karen and John Campbell-Nelson, our missionaries to Indonesia, who both serve on the faculty of Artha Wacana University and work with the Evangelical Christian Church of West Timor.

You can read more about the mission to Indonesia here, including the story of social chaos and the search for forgiveness and redemption in its aftermath.

There are Christian missionaries serving on our behalf in many countries around the world.  Each week, Global Missions highlights the work in one of these countries and asks the wider church to pray for its continued vitality in spreading the Gospel.

September 8 Worship: "The Lone Ranger"

On Sunday, we got into our post-summer groove with higher attendance, the return of the choir, and the final installment of this year's "Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series."  In fact, worship seemed particularly joyous to me -- and I don't think it was excitement from the start of the Chiefs season.

The sermon was drawn from "The Lone Ranger."  Specifically, we compared Tonto, who is an archetypal 'clever man,' to a similar clever man of the Bible, the patriarch Jacob.  After reading an episode from Jacob's life that seems to have more in common with native rituals than with faith -- his use of striped sticks of wood to affect physical appearances of goats and sheep -- I suggested that in our faith, we often try to be more clever than faithful.  We skim through the Bible looking for the perfect verses, we try to find the magic words in our prayers to make God do the things we want, we look for the quick and easy way to make God happy.  But Jacob changed after his wrestling with the presence of God, and I believe that we can change too.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you'd like to share it with others, you can find an audio recording here.

You can also listen to my communion meditation at the Lord's Table here and the closing benediction here.

Prayer for Mission in Lesotho

This week we pray for Mark Behle, our missionary to Lesotho, who works with the Lesotho Evangelical Church on matters of development and planning.

You can read more about the mission to Lesotho here, including the story of how investment in a building project has positively impacted one congregation.

There are Christian missionaries serving on our behalf in many countries around the world.  Each week, Global Missions highlights the work in one of these countries and asks the wider church to pray for its continued vitality in spreading the Gospel.

Coming Up Sunday, September 8

This Sunday we conclude this year's "Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series" with what is arguably the summer's biggest flop, Disney's The Lone Ranger, which was an attempt to reunite the team behind the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise -- producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, and actor Johnny Depp.  Unfortunately, this movie version of the popular radio and television series will probably lose more than $100 million.

Despite the movie's imperfections, it offers an intriguing portrait of Tonto, the Lone Ranger's Native American sidekick, as performed by Depp.  In many ways, Depp's Tonto is an archetypal "clever man" who uses natural wisdom -- and a healthy dose of good fortune -- to survive and thrive in an unjust world.  This is how the Biblical patriarch Jacob is presented -- at least in his life before he wrestled with God and gained the new name Israel -- as a clever man favored by God who comes out on top, even when the chips are stacked against him.  This is particularly obvious in the story of how Jacob obtains the majority of his father-in-law's flock, found in Genesis 30 (and which features a natural ritual that would make Tonto envious).

What are we to make of Jacob, the clever man?  Are we, as Christians, supposed to be similarly clever?  Or is there a deeper lesson of justice and faith in the stories of Jacob and the Lone Ranger?

Here is a trailer for this summer's "Lone Ranger":

Book Review: Finding God: A Treasury of Conversion Stories

Finding God: A Treasury of Conversion Stories, edited by John M. Mulder (Eerdmans, 2012), paperback, 418 pages

The process of conversion to the Christian faith, where someone truly confesses their belief in the redemptive power of Jesus, has always been shrouded in mystery.  Even the first disciples of Jesus who accepted his invitation to "Follow me" gave little indication about what happened within them causing them to leave their previous ways of life and to devote the rest of their lives to Jesus.

Through the centuries, Christians have tried to explain how the process of conversion works.  For generations, many congregations have offered some form of class to prepare people for baptism or confirmation (if they were baptized as infants), though the content and expectations of these classes have varied widely.  The Puritans in colonial New England had well-documented tests of conversion, requiring people to present stories of their conversions before groups of elders who determined if the experiences met their standard of Christian conversion.

No amount of formality, though, can really clarify this deeply personal process that occurs in the depths of the soul.  Moreover, those people of faith who have left accounts of their conversion experiences have shared stories with differing, and sometimes conflicting, details.  For some, conversion to Christianity was an instantaneous event, like the flipping of a switch; for others, conversion happened over time.  For some, conversion was the result of a repeated presence of God -- or the search for God -- in their lives; for others it was completely unexpected.  Some describe a sense of assurance of their salvation as part of their conversion experience; others have doubted their salvation, even after their conversion.

John Mulder, expanding on a collection of conversion stories that he edited with the late Hugh Kerr some 30 years ago, offers a wide variety of these accounts in Finding God: A Treasury of Conversion Stories.  This rich collection offers 60 well-chosen conversion stories, frequently of famous Christians throughout history, such as Martin Luther, C. S. Lewis, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, and Billy Graham.  The stories are taken mostly from memoirs, but also come from sermons, letters, and occasionally from third-person accounts.  Each is preceded by a short introduction, offering biographical details and setting the context for the conversion.

Some readers, if they have particular ideas about what constitutes a conversion experience, may find the book disorienting -- to be sure, those 17th Century Puritan elders would not know what to make of many of these stories (except to deny that they were Christian conversions).  However, I think the variety of these accounts is the great strength of this collection.  These 60 stories offer perspectives from throughout the 2000 year history of Christianity, from different theological traditions, from different places and cultures, from both men and women; this variety seeks to honor the mystery of Christian conversion as much as it seeks to enlighten.

In fact, my only quibble with the well-edited and well-presented book is that perhaps some effort should have been made to include stories from the not-so-famous alongside these iconic Christian leaders and writers in order to offer more variety of notoriety and fame.  (I certainly recognize that any anthology is going to tend towards famous names -- partially because their stories are more likely to have been preserved.  But, at the very least, there are many Puritan conversion stories extant; one could have been chosen to coincide with Jonathan Edwards' story.)  Still, this is a minor quibble.

Finding God offers an anthology of meaningful and sometimes poignant tales of personal encounters with God that changed people's lives completely.  Given the number of stories, it might serve as an alternative type of personal devotional material for a couple of months.  Overall, the collection certainly suggests a vastness in the ways God touches lives and the many ways that people respond to the age-old invitation of Jesus to "Follow me."