Roofers and Termites
Dear friends,
This has been a pretty stressful week -- so far! As I begin this message on Wednesday afternoon my home is filled with the loud noises of ladders being moved, nail guns, and other sounds that are connected with the roofing business. We are replacing our roof after a hailstorm several weeks ago. If this were not enough, we discovered that we have been actively invaded by termites from below.
I really don't know who has the better work ethic: the roofers above or the termites below. Being attacked from above and below is bad enough. These days one must also be ready for attacks from the left or from the right, politically or ecclesiastically speaking. Of course, we all know that such distractions come pretty frequently. Attacks from the left and from the right; from above and from below -- such are the distractions that often keep us from our main business as citizens in both kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.
Therefore, I need to remind you of something very important about both my injury and my recovery. First, my injury is one that at the outset pretty well devastated my entire neuromuscular system. At the beginning, all my functions were pretty well gone and it has been a very difficult and challenging struggle to get them back. Thankfully, through my own persistence and the persistence of God's people in prayer I am doing well and for that I am grateful.
Second, like the termites and the roofers my physical process has been taunted and tempted from all sides. When I was a patient at the Shepherd Center we were constantly warned about the tendency towards depression when one has sustained an injury to the spinal cord. One of the main symptoms of this depression was the desire to stay in bed instead of getting up to face the hard realities of dressing oneself, feeding oneself breakfast, and doing incredibly uncomfortable exercises the rest of the day. I can report to you first hand everything they said about getting out of bed is true. It is incredibly difficult, but I have done it every day without fail. I do this for two reasons: I know it is the right thing to do; and I am afraid of what Carole might do to me if I don't!
Finally, I get out of bed and go to work every day for a very important reason -- it is my calling that gives me both the motivation and the power. It is clear to me that my goal is not merely to "get well." Please do not misunderstand me, I want to get well more than you can possibly know, but my motivation to endure the rigors of physical therapy and days of discomfort is that I might be able to continue doing what God has called me to do. At the moment, I have no clearer calling than to be your General Presbyter and Stated Clerk. This means I need to know how to walk, drive a car, use a computer, and muster the stamina to stand on my feet for an hour at a time. In other words, it is my mission that drives my work. Without that sense of mission (that is, being sent by God in the company of others who are also sent by God to do God's work in the world, which, by the way, is full of attacks and distractions from all sides) merely getting well is not much of a goal.
Parenthetically, I am a little weary of all this news talk about the "Runaway Bride." I really think that there is great disappointment that something terrible had not happened to her, and that a juicy story might unfold, full of lurid twists and turns. The news media have tried to make something of it, but it is just another weird anomaly that is being passed off as "reality." Here is some reality that I have experienced in the past few days
Last Thursday, Carole and I went to the Shepherd Center for a follow-up visit with my doctor. For your information, everything was fine with me, physically speaking. After the doctor's visit, we went back to my old therapy haunts and engaged in some serious hugging. Everyone agreed that all concerned looked great! On the way home we had to stop by a bank branch for a quick signature on a homeowner's insurance check. Quick, you say? Yeah right! It was 4:45 p.m. on a workday -- and we were right in the middle of Buckhead! Need I say more?
As we sat in line, the wait at a traffic light seemed unusually long. It appeared as though there was a car stopped in the right lane, and we were in the left. The bad news is that neither lane was moving. I mused that a fender bender, or a terrorist threat, was about all we needed at this point. A few seconds later, we saw a man get out of a car at the front of the line ahead of us. Maybe I watch too many news broadcasts, but the first thing that entered my mind was that we were about to witness a case of "road rage." To our relief and delight, everything was resolved in the next minute or so. The traffic was stopped for a blind man trying to get across Piedmont Road at rush hour -- and this good fellow stopped traffic and helped him across the street. Where are the choppers when you need them?
Next, on Saturday Carole and I had a wonderful experience with the Mars Hill church family at its first, and I suspect annual, Chocolate Extravaganza. The Mars Hill congregation gathered around one of its baptized members, John Robert Hosfeld (age 14 months) who had recently had a heart transplant. The idea of the Chocolate Extravaganza was to raise money for the considerable medical expenses that would certainly be left to the family.
It appeared that every Mars Hill member was there in a chocolate brown T-shirt with a big pink heart on the front. It also appeared that the Mars Hill members were outnumbered by about 20 to 1. Also, it appeared that every bakery and restaurant within a 25 mile radius of the church was there giving away almost anything you can imagine made of chocolate. For a $10 contribution you could go through the fellowship hall and indulge yourself until you dropped. Beyond this, there was a gift shop, a bake shop, and a significant silent auction.
Bryant Harris, the Mars Hill pastor said he would be preaching soon on the sin of gluttony, to which I responded, "I doubt you will have any credibility!" It was all in good fun, but the result was more than just good fun: the Mars Hill members raised more than $12,000 for Jonathan's medical expenses and had only about $500 in expenses. Beyond this, the community surrounding the church learned a great deal about what it means to be a church -- to go all-out for the healing of just one little member!
Finally, Carole came home from the Cartersville First session meeting Tuesday evening with some very exciting news about the church's After School Program. Over the past three years this program has captured the interest and commitment of the church and of the community at large. This program was originally created to meet the educational needs of "at risk" children, mostly Spanish-speaking, from the Cartersville public schools. At the moment, the church is applying for PCUSA grant funding for a pre-K teacher in the program. This comes at the request of the Cartersville school system itself! The byproduct of all this is that people who come for membership in the church are people who are ready to do mission -- and not simply to "have their needs met."
There is a theme here, my friends. I hear much moaning and complaining that churches want to "grow." I am not sure exactly what this means, but I suspect it might mean that churches would like to have a little more money to maintain the status quo. I hope you will forgive my bluntness, but this is merely institutional survival thinking. Churches only grow when growing is not a goal. Remember my earlier paragraphs: my physical goal is not to get better -- it is to fulfill my calling under God.
This weekend I started reading a new book by Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror 1801-1805. President Thomas Jefferson, who, by the way, dreamed of the United States of America as a quiet, peaceful rural nation-state with little or no involvement in world affairs. When he took office, I suspect he did not take into consideration that the infamous Barbary pirates would cause him so much difficulty.
When these pirates captured a merchant ship, they confiscated its cargo and sold its crew members into slavery. Churches in the young United States of America, which was in the midst of economic depression, raised money to free some of the thousands of prisoners -- this is a biblical calling if there ever was one. Wheelan tells the story of the famous Trinity congregation at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street in New York City. They raised more than they needed to free the prisoners -- so they decided to use the remainder to build the church building!
As we celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, let us remember that the young Christian community interacted with the community and with the world day in and day out. In response, we read at the end of Chapter 2 that, "The Lord added daily to the numbers of those who were being saved."
I hope this gives us something to think about. So what if there are roofers above and termites below? We definitely have a higher calling!
Jim
This has been a pretty stressful week -- so far! As I begin this message on Wednesday afternoon my home is filled with the loud noises of ladders being moved, nail guns, and other sounds that are connected with the roofing business. We are replacing our roof after a hailstorm several weeks ago. If this were not enough, we discovered that we have been actively invaded by termites from below.
I really don't know who has the better work ethic: the roofers above or the termites below. Being attacked from above and below is bad enough. These days one must also be ready for attacks from the left or from the right, politically or ecclesiastically speaking. Of course, we all know that such distractions come pretty frequently. Attacks from the left and from the right; from above and from below -- such are the distractions that often keep us from our main business as citizens in both kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.
Therefore, I need to remind you of something very important about both my injury and my recovery. First, my injury is one that at the outset pretty well devastated my entire neuromuscular system. At the beginning, all my functions were pretty well gone and it has been a very difficult and challenging struggle to get them back. Thankfully, through my own persistence and the persistence of God's people in prayer I am doing well and for that I am grateful.
Second, like the termites and the roofers my physical process has been taunted and tempted from all sides. When I was a patient at the Shepherd Center we were constantly warned about the tendency towards depression when one has sustained an injury to the spinal cord. One of the main symptoms of this depression was the desire to stay in bed instead of getting up to face the hard realities of dressing oneself, feeding oneself breakfast, and doing incredibly uncomfortable exercises the rest of the day. I can report to you first hand everything they said about getting out of bed is true. It is incredibly difficult, but I have done it every day without fail. I do this for two reasons: I know it is the right thing to do; and I am afraid of what Carole might do to me if I don't!
Finally, I get out of bed and go to work every day for a very important reason -- it is my calling that gives me both the motivation and the power. It is clear to me that my goal is not merely to "get well." Please do not misunderstand me, I want to get well more than you can possibly know, but my motivation to endure the rigors of physical therapy and days of discomfort is that I might be able to continue doing what God has called me to do. At the moment, I have no clearer calling than to be your General Presbyter and Stated Clerk. This means I need to know how to walk, drive a car, use a computer, and muster the stamina to stand on my feet for an hour at a time. In other words, it is my mission that drives my work. Without that sense of mission (that is, being sent by God in the company of others who are also sent by God to do God's work in the world, which, by the way, is full of attacks and distractions from all sides) merely getting well is not much of a goal.
Parenthetically, I am a little weary of all this news talk about the "Runaway Bride." I really think that there is great disappointment that something terrible had not happened to her, and that a juicy story might unfold, full of lurid twists and turns. The news media have tried to make something of it, but it is just another weird anomaly that is being passed off as "reality." Here is some reality that I have experienced in the past few days
Last Thursday, Carole and I went to the Shepherd Center for a follow-up visit with my doctor. For your information, everything was fine with me, physically speaking. After the doctor's visit, we went back to my old therapy haunts and engaged in some serious hugging. Everyone agreed that all concerned looked great! On the way home we had to stop by a bank branch for a quick signature on a homeowner's insurance check. Quick, you say? Yeah right! It was 4:45 p.m. on a workday -- and we were right in the middle of Buckhead! Need I say more?
As we sat in line, the wait at a traffic light seemed unusually long. It appeared as though there was a car stopped in the right lane, and we were in the left. The bad news is that neither lane was moving. I mused that a fender bender, or a terrorist threat, was about all we needed at this point. A few seconds later, we saw a man get out of a car at the front of the line ahead of us. Maybe I watch too many news broadcasts, but the first thing that entered my mind was that we were about to witness a case of "road rage." To our relief and delight, everything was resolved in the next minute or so. The traffic was stopped for a blind man trying to get across Piedmont Road at rush hour -- and this good fellow stopped traffic and helped him across the street. Where are the choppers when you need them?
Next, on Saturday Carole and I had a wonderful experience with the Mars Hill church family at its first, and I suspect annual, Chocolate Extravaganza. The Mars Hill congregation gathered around one of its baptized members, John Robert Hosfeld (age 14 months) who had recently had a heart transplant. The idea of the Chocolate Extravaganza was to raise money for the considerable medical expenses that would certainly be left to the family.
It appeared that every Mars Hill member was there in a chocolate brown T-shirt with a big pink heart on the front. It also appeared that the Mars Hill members were outnumbered by about 20 to 1. Also, it appeared that every bakery and restaurant within a 25 mile radius of the church was there giving away almost anything you can imagine made of chocolate. For a $10 contribution you could go through the fellowship hall and indulge yourself until you dropped. Beyond this, there was a gift shop, a bake shop, and a significant silent auction.
Bryant Harris, the Mars Hill pastor said he would be preaching soon on the sin of gluttony, to which I responded, "I doubt you will have any credibility!" It was all in good fun, but the result was more than just good fun: the Mars Hill members raised more than $12,000 for Jonathan's medical expenses and had only about $500 in expenses. Beyond this, the community surrounding the church learned a great deal about what it means to be a church -- to go all-out for the healing of just one little member!
Finally, Carole came home from the Cartersville First session meeting Tuesday evening with some very exciting news about the church's After School Program. Over the past three years this program has captured the interest and commitment of the church and of the community at large. This program was originally created to meet the educational needs of "at risk" children, mostly Spanish-speaking, from the Cartersville public schools. At the moment, the church is applying for PCUSA grant funding for a pre-K teacher in the program. This comes at the request of the Cartersville school system itself! The byproduct of all this is that people who come for membership in the church are people who are ready to do mission -- and not simply to "have their needs met."
There is a theme here, my friends. I hear much moaning and complaining that churches want to "grow." I am not sure exactly what this means, but I suspect it might mean that churches would like to have a little more money to maintain the status quo. I hope you will forgive my bluntness, but this is merely institutional survival thinking. Churches only grow when growing is not a goal. Remember my earlier paragraphs: my physical goal is not to get better -- it is to fulfill my calling under God.
This weekend I started reading a new book by Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror 1801-1805. President Thomas Jefferson, who, by the way, dreamed of the United States of America as a quiet, peaceful rural nation-state with little or no involvement in world affairs. When he took office, I suspect he did not take into consideration that the infamous Barbary pirates would cause him so much difficulty.
When these pirates captured a merchant ship, they confiscated its cargo and sold its crew members into slavery. Churches in the young United States of America, which was in the midst of economic depression, raised money to free some of the thousands of prisoners -- this is a biblical calling if there ever was one. Wheelan tells the story of the famous Trinity congregation at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street in New York City. They raised more than they needed to free the prisoners -- so they decided to use the remainder to build the church building!
As we celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, let us remember that the young Christian community interacted with the community and with the world day in and day out. In response, we read at the end of Chapter 2 that, "The Lord added daily to the numbers of those who were being saved."
I hope this gives us something to think about. So what if there are roofers above and termites below? We definitely have a higher calling!
Jim
posted by Pierce | 8:00 AM
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