Saying Goodbye

Today was my last day on staff at Monroe Community Church.  While this was only a 9-month internship, I’m finding it surprisingly bitter-sweet to say goodbye to everyone.  Even though I’ll be preaching at other churches every Sunday in June, we will be able to attend Monroe two more times before leaving town for good.  But we are starting to say our goodbyes.

Our time at Monroe has been really, really good.  But I’ve found myself thinking this week about the effect I’ve had upon the church.  I can only assume that every minister goes through this when they’re leaving one ministry and starting another.  It’s not a matter of wanting to be the best minister ever or puffing yourself up.  But you do want to leave a ministry knowing that you’ve done something.

The reality is that I’ve been somewhat limited in what I was able to accomplish.  As a full-time student, I only had 10-12 hours per week to put into the church.  That basically means that preaching, Vision Team, and Enfolding Team is about all I could I handle.  It’s been encouraging to hear people tell me how much they’ve appreciated my preaching and friendship and care.  But the question remains: What have I done?

It seems to me that most pastors have no idea what they’ve done when they leave a position.  Much of the work we do goes unnoticed and often what we least expect is what people were most affected by.  It’s difficult not knowing exactly what we’ve done…but we press on, continuing to seek God’s will and follow his son…

Filed under: Church, Ministry

The Practice of Prayer (Luke 11:1-13)

This morning we’re moving into the part of our series on discipleship in which we begin talking about discipleship practices.  For the past three weeks, we’ve been taking an overview of what this spiritual journey we’re on looks like.  And depending on where you are on that journey, things will look slightly different.  Perhaps you’re still wrestling with who exactly Jesus is.  Or maybe you’re still trying to wrap your head around this religion known as Christianity.  Maybe you recently made a decision to follow Jesus, making him your Lord and savior.  Or maybe you’re an “old pro,” with 20, 30, or more years of church under your belt.  Where ever you may be, there’s always room to grow.

And I hope that you’ve had the opportunity over the past three weeks to start to narrow down where you land on that journey.

The next part of this series is going to focus on several practices – or habits or rhythms – that help us progress along this journey.  To be a disciple means more than just going to church once a week and calling yourself a Christian.  A few weeks back I defined disciple as a student, one who is learning a certain way of life.  And so there’s a sense that, no matter how long we’ve been doing something, discipleship never ends.

If growing and progressing along this spiritual path is something you’re interested in doing, then these next few weeks will make you salivate.  But I warn you, growth won’t happen if all you do is show up every week and listen to a compelling sermon from Pastor Henry or Amy and a mediocre sermon from me; you have to be willing to be challenged and shaped, to take some initiative on your own outside of church…

Lucky for us the first practice we’re looking at, our topic for today, is prayer.

Let’s start by reading our text…

READ 11:1-13

I think it’s safe to say that prayer is something that virtually everyone in America – perhaps even the world – is familiar with.  Granted, not everyone has the same understanding of prayer, but we’re all familiar with the concept.

Speaking for myself, I have a tendency to think of prayer as a bit like wishful thinking.  That’s not Biblical, but that’s how I often treat it.  I’m praying that I pass my finals next week, or that Mishaela will relent and allow us to go out for lunch after church today.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Faith, Ministry, Preaching, Sermon, Theology, Worship , Prayer

Paul the Searcher (Gal. 1:11-17)

Well I’m kicking off a new series here at Monroe.  In the ancient church, the time right after Easter was intended to be a time of spiritual growth; a time to learn more about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and what the life of a disciple looks like.  I don’t think we were intentionally following tradition, but today we are beginning a series on discipleship.

Let me give you a little heads up on what to expect over the next several weeks…

The first three weeks of this series are going to focus on seven points along the discipleship journey.  These are places that most of us have been to before, and all of us are at one of these places right now.  When you came in today, you should have received a “Your Spiritual Journey Guide.”  In this little booklet, you’ll find a list of these seven spiritual places.  This is intended to be a guide to help you discover where you are on your journey.  What we don’t want, is for someone to look at this and become discouraged because they’re not further down the line.  This does not tell you how good a Christian you are; this helps you recognize what areas you can work on and where you’re going…it’s like a spiritual map.

Pastors Henry, Amy, and myself are going to leads us as we look at the life of Paul and gain a better idea of where we as individuals may be through the example of Paul’s life.

And then after that, we”ll spend a few weeks looking at what are called “spiritual disciplines.”  These are tools that we can use to help ourselves and each other move from one place to the next and to the next.

So if we’re talking about discipleship, there’s something that we absolutely must do before we can very far into this conversation.  We need to define exactly what discipleship is.

Discipleship is the process of being or becoming a disciple.  That makes perfect sense, right?  Ya, right…

So what’s a disciple then?

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Faith, Preaching, Sermon, Theology

Updates

I’ve been really bad at this the past few weeks.  That’s what happens when you’re ONE WEEK FROM GRADUATION!!!!!

A few updates:

1. July 5th is move-out day.  We’re leaving Grand Rapids nice and early in the morning, driving backwards through our favorite Starbucks drive-through on our way out of town, and in Chicago by 10.  We’ll be spending two days in Chicago before going on to Minneapolis, Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, and Victoria – wrapping up back in Portland just one-week short of 2 years from when we left for GR.
2. No call yet – but we’re moving back anyway and I’m going to start putting a church together our very first week back in town.  Whenever Home Missions and classis decide to join us, we’ll be ready.
3. Although I graduate next Saturday (WOOT!), I have one more class to take to fulfill all requirements: Reformed World and Life View.  That wraps the last week of June.  By that point, I should know something from Synod about whether or not they’re going to let me get ordained .
4. Speaking of ordination, still haven’t heard from the Candidacy Committee regarding the official word on whether or not I have to do CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) or some other alternative.  I sent them a letter a few weeks back asking for an alternative, and from what I hear, there’s a third option on the table.  I’ll find out next Tuesday.
5. My summer preaching schedule (well, through June):
   • June 7: Lee Street CRC, Wyoming (AM & PM services)
   • June 14: Monroe Community Church, Grand Rapids (AM); East Paris CRC, Kentwood (PM)
   • June 21: Fellowship CRC, Hudsonville (AM), East Paris CRC, Kentwood (PM)
   • June 28: Not preaching – but commissioning service @ Monroe Community Church.
6. I’ll be posting a bunch of sermons over the next few days that I’ve been a little negligent about because of all the end-of-year stuff.  So check back to read up on what I’ve been preaching about…

Filed under: Random