11/28/12

Dear Family of faith, Have you bought your ticket for the Powerball Lottery drawing tonight? It’s worth more than half a BILLION dollars! I’m hoping someone from the congregation comes up with the winning ticket and drops a few measly thousand in Sunday’s offering plate to pay off our $171,000 mortgage! Seriously, though, what would you do with so much money? Life as you know it would certainly end...on the other hand, wouldn’t it be nice to help out thousands of people? Just give me a call if you come up with right numbers I have a few projects..... It hardly seems possible but it’s been less than a week since we had our church Thanksgiving Dinner. It was a big success—everything from the turkey and stuffing to the bourbon sweet potatoes and home-made pies. A big thanks to Jill, who organized the whole thing, and her right hand man, Dave Boylan, a chef who just joined the church a month ago. (If you ever want to know how to use a 5-gallon paint stirrer and a drill to mash a potful of potatoes, talk to Dave! He also fixed our broken oven while he was at it!) Many others spent many hours preparing food and cleaning up, and I am grateful for all of them. I found out that Jack Hogan can fold some pretty cool napkin shapes, too! We prayed together, ate together, played together, and sang together. We were a church family together. The donations covered the expenses and more. We gave more than $200 of excess money to the Community Outreach Fund. The madness of Black Friday crept into Thanksgiving Day in a big way this year. It’s such a little thing with big consequences—the only truly non-commercial holiday is being subtly stolen from us; and we will pay a price in the end—the loss of family bonding. I got to pondering what really makes people happy, especially in light of all the nice things available to buy. I was amused to remember that most kids would prefer playing with empty boxes than the newest $100-toy that Walmart advertises. What we really need is to practice being grateful for the basic blessings of life. I thought about that one night as I lay in bed, delighting in a firm mattress, a soft pillow, and a warm comforter. As one who had been out already this season to Tampa, handing out blankets to the homeless; I considered it a special blessing to have a warm bed. I felt like the kid in the cardboard box—satisfied with and grateful for simple things, and it made me see so many of my life’s other blessings. When you read this letter, pledge to think about such things when you have a moment, if only before you fall asleep tonight! This morning I brought my wasp spray to church and ‘took down’ five huge and industrious stinger-tailed insects from just outside our Augustine Road entrance. I was successful in immobilizing them and stopping them from creating a threatening nest, which they had decided yesterday should be built on our property. As I pushed them carefully off the sidewalk into the garden, I felt a tinge of sadness. I would really have liked to talk them into moving on their own, since they had done nothing to me to deserve their ugly fate; but I just couldn’t see where saying, “Now waspies, you’ve got to move this project somewhere else!” was going to have much effect—other than maybe a couple of stings! Even so, I felt somehow that I had violated God’s order of things. In the perfect world everyone gets along—even the animals. That’s a vision we have for a future time—where even people and wasps can live side by side. It’s what the Scriptures call “the new heaven and the new earth.” It’s something to look forward to, isn’t it? In the meanwhile, it’s okay to feel bad about hurting even the smallest of God’s creatures. I hope your week goes wonderfully and that I see you in worship on Sunday. With affection, Pastor Carlan

11/21/12 - Midweek News

11/21/12 Dear Family of faith, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you spend the day feeling very blessed to know God’s love and care in your life. Jill and I have 69 “family” members from the church who are joining us tomorrow in the Fellowship Hall for great food and fellowship. I even have an after-dinner game planned! I was listening to someone on the radio speak about Thanksgiving and learned that it is just an urban legend that turkey makes you fall asleep. Actually chicken breast and cheese have more sleep-inducing chemicals than turkey. The real reason most of us crash after Thanksgiving Dinner is that we consume twice as many carbs as we normally do so our body goes into “hibernation mode.” Speaking of carbs, it is a sad day today—Hostess Bread Company filed for bankruptcy—so there go all the Twinkies! Oh well, I’m sure we’ll find something else to eat ourselves to death with. (Personally I’d be much more upset if Oreos were taken off the market!) On the other hand, it is a great day for a certain young basketball player from Grinnell College who, in last night’s NCAA Division 3 game scored a whopping 138 points—besting the previous record by 25 points, a record not broken since 1954! When asked how he could have averaged scoring a basket every 20 seconds of the game, the new record holder, Jack Taylor, replied, “The team just kept passing me the ball. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.” Now that’s what I call teamwork—no jealousy, no selfishness, just a desire to see their teammate excel! If only all the world would be like that! It certainly is a model for us Christians—to make others look good without regard to our own aggrandizement. Last Sunday during my sermon I spoke about a dream I had to have a ‘Beautiful Fund’ in our congregation for the sole purpose of giving people a little boost in tough times by sending a bouquet of flowers or a box of candy or some token that we cared. Lo and behold, I received a donation yesterday to that fund (and I have already used some of it to get a gift for those in need of encouragement)! That’s what I like about you people—you are generous and caring, just like a family should be! Thanks to whomever gave the donation anonymously! You have been a blessing in this season of blessings! Have you ever heard anyone say, “The youth these days don’t amount to anything!”? Well, I read this past week with fascination about a young man named Sean Chapman, a student at Springstead High School, who was chosen to be the first Student Representative on the Hernando County School Board. Not only does the senior have a 4.4 GPA; he also scored a perfect score on the ACT science exam and the SAT math exam! What impressed me even more, though, was that he is the son of two immigrant parents and, because of tough times during his sophomore year, the family went the entire winter without heat. He also is responsible for starting an anti-bullying club at Challenger School! He’s applied to MIT, and I, for one, hope he gets in! Next time you think about “this younger generation,” think of Sean! There are some pretty amazing kids out there...and we have some in our congregation, too! My prayer is that all of you be blessed in this season of Thanksgiving; and more than that, that you are grateful for your blessings! See you on Sunday! With affection, Pastor Carlan

11-14-12

Dear Family of faith, When I opened my Internet news tonight the following first line greeted me: “Citizens from more than 40 states have filed petitions with the White House seeking to secede from the union, and by Wednesday, seven states had gathered enough signatures to qualify for a response to the largely symbolic protest.” This is the bizarre society in which we now live! I’m sure all of those who signed the petitions consider themselves loyal citizens and don’t see the inconsistency that wanting to break up the country is the complete antithesis of patriotism! Have we come so far in this culture of entitlement, so coddled by getting what we want so often, so driven by emotions instead of our intellects, that we now demand to “have it our way or else?” Talk about sore losers! It’s no wonder our kids throw a temper tantrum in the store when they don’t get what they want! They are learning this way of reacting from their parents and other adults around them! When will this all stop? When will we be able to accept that life doesn’t always give us our way, that votes don’t always go our way, that people don’t always think the same way that we do? The other thing that bothers me greatly about this secessionist movement is that most of those who have jumped on this bandwagon consider themselves Christians. They do, by their actions, however, reject the very teachings of Jesus who spoke about his disciples becoming peacemakers and reconcilers and living in harmony. We have great examples of disagreement in the Bible that ended not in self-pity and enmity, but in reconciliation and even mutual affection: Abraham and Lot couldn’t live together in the same land, so they chose to go different ways: Paul and Barnabus couldn’t agree over whether to take John Mark on their second mission trip, so they went on different trips; Paul and Peter disagreed over whether to share unkosher meals with Gentiles, but in the end supported each other completely. Those who follow God have much to teach the world. Let us all strive to be that light so badly needed in our time! I recently read an article on the negative effects of stress on our bodies. The physician who wrote the article named the following ways it harms us: (1) it damages blood vessels and our heart; (2) it causes our body to release hormones that cause the liver to release sugar and store fat (which ends up on our stomachs!); (3) it exhausts our adrenal glands and can lead to disrupted sleep and decreased energy; (4) it cause muscular tension that can lead to headaches, backaches, and muscle soreness; (5) it can increase the amount of stomach acid released and affect the motility of our intestines and colon, leading to gastrointestinal problems; and (7) it suppresses the immune system, making us more susceptible to infections and certain chronic illnesses. In short, it makes you fat, tired, sore, nauseated, and sick! Not exactly a great thing to have! What, then, can we do about stress (short of dying)? Well, since we can’t get rid of all the stressors of life; we have to learn how to minimize their effect; and one of the best ways to do that is to live close to God. That’s why worship and prayer are so helpful. I invite you all to come, let loose of your life’s stresses in the presence of God and among the family of God this coming Sunday, Thanksgiving Sunday. The title of my sermon for the day is “Can You See Beautiful?” With affection for all of you, Pastor Carlan

News 11-7-12

Dear Family of faith, It’s over! The robo calls, the bulk mailings, the irritating TV ads and Internet pop-up plugs are finally over! The election has been called and the people have chosen. By some estimates there was $2 billion spent on the campaigns—the most expensive election in the history of the nation. In the end we are left with the same problems to fix, the same realities to face, and a country that is as polarized as ever. Some of us are elated; some of us are dejected. Some are hopeful; others are fearful. And this dichotomy of emotions exists not just among neighbors, but within congregations and families and even marriages and partnerships. What does it mean for us? It means that whatever our feelings on this day after, we have work to do—the work of reestablishing relationships and goodwill that such a vicious campaign has threatened and damaged. It is a call for us, who claim to follow Jesus, to get out of our comfort zones and dare to be the peacemakers that Jesus called his disciples to be in the Beatitudes. If we are disgusted by the gridlock in the halls of congress but are unwilling to extend the hand of friendship and reconciliation to those who differ with us on much more minor issues, how hypocritical is that! No, dear family, if the country is to change, it will be because the people who care become the people who dare to be different. That is my prayer for all of us—that we listen before we speak, that we think before we act, and that we treat others the way we wish to be treated ourselves—in short, that we become the peace the world needs so desperately. Let’s let the hospitality that has won so many newcomers over to our church be the same spirit we extend to the world! “Don’t be afraid!”—that’s the message that angels kept bringing to people throughout the Bible. The older I get, the more I realize why that message was so universally applicable. There are a lot of fearful people in this world today—and that fear breeds all kinds of other horrible things like greed, envy, dissension, hatred, prejudice, loneliness, and violence. But John teaches us that perfect love (God’s love) casts out all fear. When you trust God for all the important things in life, you can live in hope and courage. What a breath of fresh air it is in our world! Live without fear today, and let those around you sense the peace you have by the unusually kind and caring way you treat them! With affection for you, Pastor Carlan