Recently, Linda and I visited Disney World with some of our family, including most particularly our granddaughter Caitlyn. Being our first visit to Disney there was a lot for us to take in. Disney is certainly an impressive place, and almost overwhelming in its size. The ingenuity and creativity that is displayed throughout the park fills you with amazement. We enjoyed the many different activities and events that were available for us to participate in.

However, of all that Disney had to offer the thing that impressed me most was not their ingenious or creative abilities. It was not their size or what they had to offer. The thing that impressed me most was the friendliness and cheerfulness of everyone who worked there. We happened to be there in the wake of the great February snow storms and it was cold in Florida. Yet, from the time we got there until the time we left every employee we encountered was friendly and cheerful, and they were all over the place. That was true of the maids and grounds keepers as well as all other workers. Wherever we went workers were coming up to us and welcoming us, or greeting us, or asking if they could help us. When we weren’t sure which way or where to go, they would often not just give us directions, but take us where we wanted to go. It was as if their one aim was to serve us, to make us feel welcome, that we might get the most out of our experience.

What was continually going through my mind that week was that this is what the church should be like. The church should be a place where each and every member goes out of his or her way to welcome others, especially visitors and new people. And we should do it cheerfully. But all too often it doesn’t happen.

How many times do we go to church, sit in our pew, surrounded by our friends, and never make a move to talk to people we don’t know, who may be new or who may even be members we have never taken the time to get to know them. Too often we are friendly toward those who are already our friends and we ignore those we don’t know.

I have visited in many churches where have gone in and out without a single greeting from a church member, or where, during a time of congregational exchange of greetings, they congregate in their groups and leave the visitors or new people out. This doesn’t just happen in other churches. I have seen it happen too often in our own church.

Friendliness to those who are already our friends doesn’t make us a friendly church. Being a friendly church is getting out of our pew and going across the isle to greet and welcome and get to know somebody we don’t already know. That should not be the responsibility of a few people, but the obligation of every Christian and church member. As Christians, Disney would put many of us to shame in the display of hospitality.

Disney workers offered the kind of cheerful welcome that even if you didn’t care for the activities, you would want to go back just because of the warm friendliness. This is a model of what we as the church are to be. There should be a warm and friendly welcome that radiates from each and ever member that would cause visitors and new people to want to come back. Let us so radiate the love of Jesus that others are to us through our genuine expressions of friendliness.

One of the most devastating events in human history took place recently with the earthquake that shook and destroyed so much of Haiti. With a population of over 9 million people, Haiti is a country of extreme poverty. Time and again they have suffered from hurricanes, flooding, political unrest and violence. But the January earthquake caused incalculable loss of human life and massive number of injuries, as well as damage and destruction to the infrastructure, major landmarks and the homes and livelihoods of millions of people.

The question that many people ask is, where is God in all of this? Some years ago Philip Yancey wrote a book by the title, Where Is God When It Hurts? Perhaps that’s another way to ask the same question. Where is God in all his destruction and devastation, all this death and pain?

For some people God simply put all things in motion and now just watches from a distance. God doesn’t interfere one way or the other with the world and human life. We are on our own. There is a fatalism about life, whatever will be will be.

For other God is responsible for everything that happens. Good things are God’s blessings and bad things are God’s punishment or judgment.

The first view shows a God who is unconcerned and indifferent, the second view shows a God who is capricious and vindictive.

When applied to the situation in Haiti the first view says that God is a distant viewer who is unconcerned with what has happened there. The second view says that God is responsible for what happened there, that it is God’s judgment on the people and nation.

Both of these views are wrong for neither one is Biblical. Yes, God called down fire to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and from time to time He brought judgment upon the ancient nation of Israel. But those were special and isolated incidences.

One day Jesus and the disciples were rebuked by a Samaritan city. James and John asked Jesus if they could call down fire from heaven to consume the city and its people. Jesus’ reply was, “the Son of Man (Jesus) did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Luke 9:56)

What happened in Haiti certainly falls within the parameters of God’s permissive will, what He allows to happen in the course of human life and nature. But it is not God’s purposeful will, that is, God did not plan or cause the earthquake to happen. It was not His judgment upon the people for whatever evil may have been practiced in the land. If so, the judgment would have fallen upon more innocent people than deserving people.

The earthquake is something that God permitted but did not cause. That brings me back to the question, “Where is God when it hurts?,” and the answer is, He is right there in the midst of hurt and pain and brokenness. God is right in the midst of the earthquake ravaged people of Haiti. He is there to be their comfort in their brokenness. He is there to be their hope when all seems hopeless. He is there in the compassion of rescue workers and aid workers. He is there in hands of surgeons who tend and treat the medical needs. He is there in the hands of relief workers who give food and water to starving and thirsty people. He is there in the work of those who minister in the name of Jesus Christ. And He is there in your prayers and offerings that reach out to the hurting people in His name.

WHere is God when it hurts? He is right there in the midst of the hurt to bring healing and hope. Thanks be to God!

In his first letter to the Corinthian believers, Paul wrote: “For a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Cor. 16:9). Paul was writing about his work in Ephesus. The door of opportunity for proclaiming the gospel was wide open, and many people were responding to the gospel message. At the same time there were many others who were opposing Paul and the gospel message.

This text also speaks to us at the beginning of a new year. A new year is a door that stands open to offer us new opportunities . But there are never open doors without opposition. It has been said that there is an opportunity in every difficulty and a difficulty in every opportunity. We don’t know what all the difficulties or obstacles or adversaries may be in the coming year, but we do know that it is an open door or opportunity.

J. Sidlow Bacter, in his book Awake My Heart, speaks of the open door of the new year. He says, “The last day of the older year is shut against us. However much we may wish to wrench it ajar again, we cannot...As we cannot go back to re-live the old year, let us not pine amid useless regrets, but turn our eyes to the great new door of opportunity which the new year sets before us. Baxter says, “the door of the new year, by the grace of God, now swings open.” He also adds that it is “a God-given door of opportunity.”

As we look back most of our regrets have to do with what we didn’t do rather than what we did do. But we cannot go back and re-live or re-do the past. The door of the old year is shut against us. But the new year offers us new opportunities to move on and to do more and become more. Again, Baxter notes two things about this door of the new year.

First, Baxter says “it is a door to richer fellowship with God.” As Christian there should be within each of us a thirst and longing for fellowship with God. God created us to be in fellowship with Him. If our hearts are not longing for fellowship with God then there is something amiss in our spiritual life. Our adversary to us with its attractions that divert our attention from God and the things of God. And it happens very subtly.

Satan rarely uses evil things to draw our attention away from God. He uses good things that he causes us to set up as idols that replace God in our lives. These good things can be work, sports, leisure activities, hobbies or any other thing that we put before God. These are the things that so often stand between us and God. These are the adversaries that keep us from fellowship with God.

Contentment seems to be in short supply today. There is always something more or something else that we want. We are never satisfied. Our society thrives on discontentment, that’s what feeds our economic and political life.

There are some times when we should be discontented. When we look around us and see the needs of the poor and the downtrodden we should have a discontentment that causes us to do something and not sit idly by.

But it is the first aspect of contentment that I am reminded of when the Apostle Paul says, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11 NIV). He goes on to say, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (vs. 12). This is not just rhetoric, for the Apostle Paul had known all those circumstances at various times in his life. And yet he can say “I have learned the secret of being content….”

What is his secret of contentment and how do we learn to live a contented life? There are two things we need to note.

First, we need to go back to verses 4 and 6 where he tells us to “Rejoice in the Lord always” and “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Contentment begins with rejoicing in the Lord and giving thanks to God. Paul is letting us know that rejoicing and thanksgiving are the antidotes to being anxious or discontent. Contentment comes when we live with joy in the Lord and gratitude to God in every situation and circumstance.

Second, Paul says, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (vs. 13). The secret of his contentment was, as Bible commentator Adam Clarke wrote, “not a habit which he had acquired by frequent exercise, it was a disposition which he had by grace; and he was enabled to do all by the power of an indwelling Christ.”

True contentment is found in Christ. Our part is to rejoice and give thanks; God’s part is to give us the grace and enabling power. Are you experiencing true contentment in your life? Here is the secret.

The Bible tells us that in six days God created all things and on the seventh day He rested. In the book of Exodus the seventh day became known as the Sabbath, and when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses He said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God” (Ex. 20:8, 10). It was to be a day of rest and worship of God.

Throughout the Scriptures the Sabbath day was to be kept as holy, a day set apart from all the other days, a day to rest from labor and to draw near to God. In the New Testament, we read of Jesus going into the synagogue on the Sabbath day “as was his custom” (Lk. 14:16).

After the resurrection of Jesus, which took place on the first day of the week, that first day would become the day of rest and worship for Christians. Every first day of the week would be a reminder and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Thus, the first day of the week became the Christian Sabbath. Before the end of the first century that first day of the week would be referred to by Christians as “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10).

Down across the ages, where the Christian church has held sway, the phrase “the Lord’s Day” has been in prominent usage until more recent times. Now, we are more likely to call that day by its secular name, “Sunday,” than we are to refer to it as “the Lord’s Day.” This has been a subtle but significant change. By dropping the reference to “the Lord’s Day” we have, over time, shifted the focus of the day away from church, worship and God to just another day.

Even more significant is the subtle change where we don’t even call it Sunday, but we refer to it as “the weekend.” The connotation is that the weekend is “our day(s)” to spend as we like for our own pleasurable pursuits. Now we have left God out altogether. The Lord’s Day has been replaced by the weekend. Our focus on the Lord has been replaced by our focus on self.

While we all use these various terms, we often fail to realize the subtle ways they influence our thought patterns, our values and our life styles. When we get our focus off of “the Lord’s Day” then it becomes just another day for us to fill however we want.

We need to regain the significance of the Christian Sabbath, a day to keep holy unto the Lord, “the Lord’s Day.” It is to be a day, above all else, to worship the Lord. What are you doing to keep it holy unto the Lord?

How quickly the summer has passed and we are about to enter September and begin our fall programs and activities. For some of you this means a continuation of what you have been doing. For others it is a regrouping to pick up where you left off in the spring. And for still others it is the beginning of something new, a new school year, a new class or grade, a new job.

For our church it is a call to arms. It is time for all good and faithful members to rally around the banner of the church, to step up and be counted, and to be counted upon. As we move into the fall season we are facing some changes in our church.

GeorgeAnn Futia, who has been our faithful choir director, praise team leader, pianist, and over-all music coordinator, is no longer able to continue those responsibilities because of her health. I want to thank GeorgeAnn for all that she has contributed to the music and over-all ministry of our church. She has shared her talents and time in a way that is immeasurable. Her absence leaves a big gap that will not be easy to fill. Our prayers will be with her as she goes through her treatments and we seek God for her healing.

Judy Frett will be directing the Chancel Choir on an interim basis as we look for someone to fill the position for the long term. The adult Praise Team will be regrouping and they, along with the Jr. Praise Team, will be alternating and sharing in leading the music of the 8:30 worship services. Please keep all of these in prayer.

This is not a time to retreat but to rally together and move forward. What does that mean for each and every one of us? If you are a church member then it is expected of you to support the church with your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service and your witness. That means it is expected of you to pray regularly for the life and ministry of the church. It is expected of you to faithfully be in attendance at the worship services. It is expected of you to generously support the church with your tithes and offerings. It is expected of you to willingly serve in and through the church. It is expected of you to boldly bear witness for Jesus Christ and the church.

These are not recommendations or suggestions. These are the vows of membership. These are the things to which you commit yourself when you join the church. Now is the time to take stock of your faithfulness to what you have committed yourself. Now is the time to step up and be counted.
Summer is over. Let us join together to worship the Lord and to do the work of the kingdom. In the words of a contemporary song: “Come, now is the time to worship….”

As summertime approaches I find that writers in some of the magazines I receive list their summer reading recommendations. The idea is that summer offers us a little more leisure time and we ought to spend some of it reading and thus broaden our knowledge and our horizons.

I believe that reading is one of the essential parts of a growing mind. When we neglect reading we are starving our mind and stunting our mental growth. Warren Wiersbe, in an article taken from his book Victorious Christians You Should Know, says “reading is to the mind what eating is to the body: it provides nourishment….Many people are starving their minds by neglecting the nutritious volumes that are available for their reading.”

A.W. Tozer, in his book Man: the Dwelling Place of God, writes: “While it is impossible to live even a short time without learning something, unfortunately it is possible to live a long time and not learn very much….To think without a proper amount of good reading is to limit our thinking to our own tiny plot of ground. The crop cannot be large.”

Reading is an important element that all too many people neglect today. As Christians we need not only to be readers, but we need to encourage others to read. Reading is the building block of the mind, as well as our faith.

Because there is so much to read out there, we need to be very selective in our reading. Of course the Bible is the first and most important book we should be reading every day. Then we should be reading books that help build our faith, our lives, our homes, our relationships, etc. We should also be widely read, as that will broaden our knowledge and understanding of life and the world in which we live.

There is a lot of Christian fiction available today and some of it is quite good. However, a steady diet of good fiction is like a steady diet of fast food; it may fill you up and make you feel good but it isn’t very nourishing. I would encourage you to read biographies of great Christians, as well as those of other great men and women of history. Read the classics that have endured the test of time. Read books that stretch your mind. You’ll find many of these in our church library.

Whatever you do, read! The results will be more wonderful than you can imagine.