I have not really been able to sing since the pneumonia. But recently I was asked by THE REACH NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER OF SPECIAL TOUCH DISABILITIES MINISTRY to put together a brief video for their virtual service coming up.
I gave it the old college try Friday. I am definitely out of practice, but at least most of the notes are right.
Just over a year ago God gave me a vision during a Sunday morning service. In this vision I saw a satanic force coming against our church. The Lord showed me that for a season we would be able to thwart this spirit power in the strength God had already given us. But the Lord told me that there would come a time when the enemy would be too powerful for us to face in our own strength. The Lord instructed that when that time came we were to call the church to pray and He would send us divine helpers to strengthen and revive the church.
I believe we have come to that time when we cannot face the enemy in our own strength…. and so we have started THE WALL prayer meetings to call the church to pray and ask God to send us the help He promised. This is our prayer meeting from last Wednesday night. Perhaps you can use it to spend some time focusing your own prayers. Please join us this Wednesday night from 7-8 to pray.
I am so proud of this lady. I would say girl but that is not what she is anymore. She has proven herself to be one of the most capable adults I know.
Today is Amanda’s birthday. If you want to know how old she is you are going to have to ask her. Because I try never to tell a lady’s age. I can be old school like that sometimes.
Amanda was supposed to be in Pennsylvania celebrating this week. Covid-19 has changed all that. It looks like none of us are going anywhere for quite a while. So instead of doing normal birthday things today like going out to eat or heading out for a movie, Amanda will be doing another episode of “Without A Recipe.”
Check in with her at 3 P.M. to wish her a happy birthday and to tell her how to make an ice cream Sundae.
Here she is making a dessert lasagna.
When the shut in was declared we all knew our lives were going to change radically: My life became more cloistered. Brenda was suddenly thrust into the world of Zoom and Facebook meetings. Amanda discovered she was going to be doing a lot of organization, direct ministry and on-line services. She is perhaps the busiest member of the Vicarage now. She still goes into work everyday at the church and she is spending copious amounts of time organizing and administrating long distance ministry.
Every week she creates CD’s for shut ins who do not have on-line access. She planned an Easter Outreach with the help of our Pastor’s wife and then set up the delivery schedule with a team of people from the church. She does daily challenges with her kids to keep them engaged, and every week she also produces two segments for Facebook. Fridays she does her children’s lesson. On Mondays she has begun doing a fun feature called Without a Recipe for kids and parents alike. Here is the first one. I will be posting the others as well, but if you would like to see an episode live you can find her on Facebook live tomorrow at 3 P.M. She will be making Sundaes without a recipe.
This is our sermon for on-line church today as we begin our new series called Pray!
Just over a year ago God gave me a vision during a Sunday morning service. In this vision I saw a satanic force coming against our church. The Lord showed me that for a season we would be able to thwart this spirit power in the strength God had already given us. But the Lord told me that there would come a time when the enemy would be too powerful for us to face in our own strength. The Lord instructed that when that time came we were to call the church to pray and He would send us divine helpers to strengthen and revive the church.
I believe we have come to that time when we cannot face the enemy in our own strength…. and so we have started THE WALL prayer meetings to call the church to pray and ask God to send us the help He promised. This is a prayer meeting from a week ago but perhaps you can use it to spend some time focusing your own prayers.
Many years ago, after taking a course called 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I started planning out my week using an agenda. Over the years I have adapted a shorthand that helps keep me on track throughout the week. My agenda looks like this.
It’s pretty simple really and covers everything from sleep to daily exercise and even prayer.
I found that just writing down what I planned to do in a weekly agenda did not help me to do the things I planned. The agenda helped me to keep track of my meetings ( which as a pastor is important, you don’t want to be missing funerals or weddings), but as far as the big rocks went (the disciplines of everyday living I valued like prayer or exercise) just writing them on a weekly to do calendar did not help me prioritize them. I found it too easy to let the work of ministry supplant the everyday disciplines because the work seemed so much more urgent than the time spent in the things I valued for my personal life.
Then I got a smart phone and I discovered two things: the Bible App and the timer/stopwatch app. I had heard how monks lived by a series of bells telling them when to go to certain activities and when to move on from that activity to the next one. Of course we all did that in school didn’t we? I personally loved when the lunch bell rang.
I tried it where my personal disciplines were concerned. When it came time for prayer, I would set my timer for twenty minutes and when it rang I could go on to the next activity…or I could set it for another twenty minutes, if I had nothing pressing me, and pray some more. But while the clock was counting down precious few things were allowed to interrupt me from my timed task.
Soon I was using the timer to time my exercise sessions, my reading sessions my writing sessions and even my housework. I found living by the bells had two advantages: For some reason the idea of doing a timed task made me more committed to the task and less likely to allow myself to be interrupted. Also, if I found myself not wanting to do a task, telling myself I only had to do it until the bell rang made the task more palatable somehow.
It still took work and time, trial and failure, but life by the bells has worked for me. As we have shut ourselves in during this time of quarantine, life by the bells has helped me organize and structure my days even while I do not have the big events like church services or worship practices or community events to attend to.
How do you structure you daily life?
Last week our grocery store started limiting the number of people who could go in at one time. One in one out, is the new rule.
This week we were asked to start shopping in two week stints to limit the amount of exposure each of us have to the public, as cases of the Covid-19 mount across the state. I could feel the fear as I was shopping yesterday. One man yelled at me when I pulled down my face mask for a moment to defog my glasses.
In the midst of our world falling apart around us by bits and pieces, I have been “attending” an on-line retreat regarding the sorrows of Passion Week. Today our leader in the retreat wrote this:
“Where is our hope? Our hope is in a God who died publicly humiliated outside the walls of a minor city in a great empire. This God is not a God for winners, not a God who makes us great again. We believe in a God who throws the rich from their thrones and lifts up the lowly. Our God dies daily, alongside the poor, the outcast, the immigrant child, the fearful and victimized, the one who dies alone. Our hope is in a God who chooses humility, a God who bows deeply, who suffers with us, even unto death. A God who dies daily alongside those in this plague, who knows the fear of those who serve others in this pandemic, who knows the avoidance of those who would rather go back to sleep.” Almut Furchert
I am struck by the phrase, “Our hope is in a God who chooses humility, a God who bows deeply,”
When, besides the cross, in all of the worlds religions did a god choose humility? IN the cross God bowed low!!!!
For me this time has been a very humbling experience. I got sick at the beginning of the shut- in and my voice has not yet returned (I am thanking God that this sickness was not as serious as it could have been). I have not led worship in something like seven weeks. This has been one of my lamentations during this season. It felt like a loss ( not so much the loss of worship but of my voice), but God has showed me that this is the moment I have prayed for. In my inability, younger men have stepped to the plate and worship has gone on, and there is actually a liberation in that!
The whole church is being humbled as we approach this Easter weekend. We are being forced to do away with the pomp and circumstance which generally go with this season. We are being forced to return to the simplicity of the cross: no frills, no stirring music or acting, no lights or crowds, just a naked Savior hanging, dying on a cross. Perhaps in the midst of our world falling apart this will be one of the most powerful Easters the church has experienced in many years simply because we cannot make it about us or our attempts at personal kingdom building. It must be completely about Jesus.
God is changing me through this experience. He is moving me ,in the midst of it, into the new place He has been promising to being me. He is accomplishing His prophesied move in our church at Cornerstone and He is fulfilling His prophesied word in the church world- wide. The church is being humbled. As the crucifixion of Christ was God’s plan to bring about Christ’s Resurrection then, this crucifixion we are experiencing has a resurrection attached to it as well. Hold onto that.
In these days of social distancing, this is the hub of church life now. The staff and board are all on line first thing in the morning or on the phone connecting with people to show up at on-line church. All through the service Amanda, Brenda and I are here at The Vicarage “greeting” people as they come on line and gathering info through private message convos and on-line comments. We follow up on these throughout the week by phone and Facebook.
After the service, Amanda goes in and makes a few copies for people who do not have internet service and then we distribute the CD version to the doors of those individuals homes.
I hope you enjoy our pastor’s message today.
In my afternoon prayer time the Lord said, “You are beginning to slow down enough to become more consistently creative.”
It is true I have been attempting to be more creative on a more consistent basis. My goal, for the longest time, has been to create a piece of writing and a piece of art everyday.
A fellow artist began posting simple drawing techniques to play with when the stay at home order began. It was then I thought to myself. This time apart could help me establish some of the new habits I have been attempting this year. The dog above was drawn by first writing the number 61 on the page.
One of my problems artistically has always been my consistency. I tend to create in fits and starts. The idea of taking time…prioritizing time everyday has seemed nearly impossible.
That road block which has plagued me for so many years has been removed and I am finding that while I may be classified a beginner my heart is in this. I am having fun creating.
The other day I wrote a poem and I actually took time to rewrite it using a formal poetic form. It was so much fun!
I am finding the more I practice the better I get. I really like my cat.
The Lord is using art to help me keep my mind off of the worries of these present days. What is God laying at your feet to help you shift from worry to joy? If you haven’t found anything take out a piece of paper and a pencil or pen and try your hand at drawing.
Notes From the Vicarage 