Rebuilding Blocks: Brokenness

“I was just heartbroken.” We have all probably said that a time or two.  Sometimes there is nothing more to say. Sometimes it is lighter situations that seem dreadful at the time.  Your favorite team plays a great game but just comes up sort at the end, it can be a heartbreaking loss. If you are a sports fan, your heart will be broken. Then there are deeper more serious, deeper, hurtful times when we utter that profound statement. When you look around our Centralia community and witness young people lives cut short, lives that are full of promise, hope, and anticipating tragically cut short: as a community our hearts break.  If you ever risk love, your heart will get broken and those wounds go deep. You even weather you realize it or not take that brokenness into the future relationships as well. The wounds go deep. Our hearts can break for others as well. When a family member or friend gets those awful words from a doctor, our heart can break. Whenever a child’s life is ended way too soon in our community, it is a tragedy, but it also can break our heart, damage soul, and destroy our spirit as well.

So we stand among the rubble of what once was, with our hearts broken as we try to rebuild. We desperately search for meaning in our brokenness but many times there is none. So we stand in the middle of the chaos of our lives, with our hearts broken, not know how, when, and where to start to rebuild what was lost in our life. We begin not with the unknown but with the absolutes in our life.  We know that God is a God of love and life. One thing that is consistent throughout scripture is God is the God of love and life. He had provided for us love and life in this life and beyond. We know that brokenness is a season. A painful season but like all seasons both good and bad, seasons change. We also are absolute that God is a God of reconciliation. God love it when we come together without conflict. Most importantly if we look back from the beginning, God creates best out of chaos. It was out of chaos God created the physical world in which we live. It was out of chaos God sent His son to restore grace, mercy, and forgiveness in a new covenant. If we read the stories of both the Old and New Testament, we will find hundreds of rich stories where God created something better out of chaos, suffering, and brokenness. Let us not forget God can do the same in our brokenness as well. We must invite Him into our pain, chaos, and sadness. Because when our hearts are broken, God’s heart is broken as well. Join us as we uncover more rebuilding blocks as we rebuild from the ruins of our lives.

Just Love one Another

Tommy 

Sabbath Ain’t Just Solo Anymore

We live in a stressed out, chaotic, frustrating uneasy world. One only has to read the headlines or watch the news to know that craziness abides in our everyday existence. Our bodies eventually begin to show the physical signs of stress: High blood pressure, heart disease, strokes, over eating, and many more medical conditions are directly or indirectly related to stress. We all handle the stress of our lives differently. We all have been told to “just have more faith.” There has been a stigma attached Christians that is your life is stressful you lack faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we look at Jesus as he cleansed the temple and prayed in the garden before being arrested, Jesus had stress. Stress is part of life. We cannot avoid it, destroy it, or pray it away. So we must learn ways and means to deal with it. But God did not just leave it up to us to figure it out. First we are reminded that God creates out of chaos. Out of chaos, God created the heaven and earth and called it good. It was out of the chaos of sin, that God provided redemption, reconciliation, and salvation. God works best in creating out of stress and chaos.

We discussed why it is important to take a Sabbath or to rest as individuals. We uncovered how God rested and if it was important enough for the Creator of the universe to rest, maybe we should also. We also pointed out that God just didn’t simple take a day of rest but made that day Holy. A day set aside like no other day of the week. God also commanded his people to keep the Sabbath as part of God’s covenant with His people. It’s a time to rebuild relationships, spend intimate time with those we love, and not allow the world to dictate us. We all could use a little rest and better relationships.  God instructed us to take a Sabbath or day of rest witch is all agreeable on an individual basis but He doesn’t stop there. God instructs us to take a Sabbath as a community of faith as well. All communities need a time for renewal, re-energized, and a revision of passion.  It is a break from doing business as usual. Can you imagine if we took a time out in our community to just refocus? What if businesses, political leaders, social workers, teachers, educators, and religious leaders put aside all agendas, ideals, and opinions and focused all of our energy on one single issue that plagues our community? Can you imagine if our whole community that stop just saying “what’s wrong” and concentrates on specific concrete programs, outreach, and service. A break to evaluate if our efforts are truly helping or enabling those we are called to serve. As a faith community we need intentional periods of Sabbath to stop, listen to God’s instruction, reevaluate our efforts, and define our true calling in our community. God desires any community to take a Sabbath. Maybe it’s time we all put that into practice and follow God’s lead.

Lead Servant:

Tommy 

What's in a Name?

Note: The content of this article was written as a collaborative effort between ideas expressed through emails between myself and Abby Henegar who is a senior psychology major at TCU, a amazing servant of God and calls me Dad. 

If you Google First Christian Church you will find 114 million hits. So what is in a name that is so common that there are 114 million others? The one thing our Centralia community has the most of per our population is churches yet our community seems to be in chaos and fear. So the problem arises if there are so many churches and things are getting worse then what can we as a faith family do to be more effective. What will make our name carry significance and respond accordingly?

First and foremost we will not panic nor fear. It was out of chaos that God created the world in which we life. It is in the chaos of our lives when Christ is the closest to us. God’s love and mercy has always hovered over chaos. Now is no different.  We Also need to realize our community is not unique. We have had an increase of deaths not by natural causes. However in my home town of Memphis in one evening fourteen people were killed. Two children were shot and killed in a drive by shooting while they slept in their beds. Every child should feel safe in their bed. I say this not out or disrespect but to note that evil is everywhere. It is now just trickling down to our community. We need to acknowledge that every life matters. Each life needs to matter to us regardless of age, race, religion, or social class. Why? Because each life matters of Christ so as a follower of Christ it needs to matter to us.

We will continue to preach and prayer that's been echoed it basically all scripture that Jesus, is in fact, alive and well. Alive and well in all of us that call ourselves Christians. We will continue to serve the countless number of families that visit the food bank, fellowship meal, and Salvation Army on a weekly basis. We will be intentional on focusing on the youth who are trying to fill the void in their life with sex, drugs, alcohol. It’s a void that only the peace of Jesus can fill. We will remain serving the adults who ended up with a life they never wanted or deserved. We will continue to focus ones in Centralia that lack an understanding of relentless, forgiving, unconditional love.  We will be an oasis where one can find a real relationship with the One who gave them life.  We will provide a place for those who yearn for a faith that fancy coffee bars, energetic PowerPoints, and rock bands cannot satisfy. We will be a place of refuge were everyone is not only welcomed but cherished.  We will proclaim if anything  that Jesus is living in Centralia today.  Jesus befriended the hurt, the broken, the least of these, the ones that society would not even give a chance.... Jesus is running this town, He always has been.  Jesus runs through us though, its his method of operation.  Jesus was a part of saving Murray Center, he was a part of Centralia Group Workcamp, and Jesus was running the streets of Centralia supporting the families and friends of those with cancer and other illnesses. This town is run by Jesus through our actions. Always has, and always will.  It is our job to make sure that we aren't distracted by personal pride and ego in our attempt to serve our city and serve our God... When we serve ourselves instead, the Jesus in us is counterproductive. We must shine God's light - not our own. Because it isn't ours to shine. Our name will not be a brand. Jesus did not need video promos, cool graphics, or tattoo drawn t-shirts. So nether shall we. Christ had himself and his father. So, what do we have in common with Jesus? - Ourselves & our Father. We are responsible; we are the future, with God’s will running through us, their will running through our city. We will cultivate disciples of Jesus. We will be more than a t-shirt wearing disciple. My goal is that someone can come to know hope, love, justice, and the presence of God by being myself, being a light of God our Father. Speaking for the next generation for disciples 20 year old Abby writes “I want to get on outreach: serving the poor, comforting the hurt, broken, and sick. I want to use our money not to be a billboard for Jesus, but use it to be blessing for someone else. I want to use myself not as a billboard, I want to use my talents and gifts God gave me as a hand-holder to the broken.”  

In reflection of the chaos we are enduring. Let us begin to respond accordingly so our name shall be synonymous for a faith family that consistently communicates the message of forgiveness, restoration, and hope. Then God's will to be with us through both the mountains and the dark valleys.

Peace, Love and Happiness: Tommy 

Sinning Like A Christian: Lust

This week we end the sermon series Sinning Like a Christian with the last deadly sin: lust. The sin of lust is the trickiest of them all. Sex or lust specifically is the least talked about subject in the Bible. Money is the most talked about subject but you will hear more preachers in many mainline churches speak on the evils of sex or sexual orientation more than they will address money, hunger, helping those in need.  Church and sex have been sort of taboo. However in this day and time we have more curiosity in sexuality or sex than Jesus did. We often overlook the simple fact that for survival all creatures must procreate. It’s natural part of our humanity. Lust has always been around from King David voyeurism of Bathsheba to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Today the highest grossing commerce on the internet is porn. Addiction to pornography is the fastest growing addiction for both male and female.  This is because accessibility, no accountability, and full anonymity.  50 Shades of Gray sold over 100 million copies as well as one of the highest grossing movies.  What use to be only a male dominated consumption now there are as many women as men indulging in porn commerce. This is a way of saying that even though sex has been always been around since creation, none the less, times are a changing. Lust has expanded over time and generations.  The problem with the sin of lust is the simple fact that according to Jesus, there needs to be no action. Jesus says the sin of lust happens in the heart. It is no difference from sleeping with a person than looking at a person lustfully.  Desire is good. Desire is a God given thing. But desire misdirected, misused, leads to sin. Sexual improprieties will be the leading headline every time. As a society we are intrigued by headlines of celebrities, politicians, and famous people caught up in sexual wrong doings. The church and society rather spend time debating, defending, and arguing over sexual orientation than sharing God’s love, mercy, and grace with those struggling in life. The thing about lust is that it doesn’t grow. You hot for someone or our not. But love grows. And as love grows in a committed relationship, lust doesn’t increase; true love will intensifies and sustained the desire throughout time.

So no matter what our sin is, whether it is one of the seven or another, God wants to hear about our sin. God wants to hear it so we have to tell it to Him in order to be forgiven of our sin so that we might compass the full depth, the great height, and the breath of God’s love. Confessing to God, or repenting whatever you wish to call it, releases us of the burden of sin. We are saved by God’s grace just as we are. Not how God or others want us to be. Jesus Christ said upfront and honestly “I have come to seek the lost, to save the lost.”  And here he found people like you and me. Christ seems to have rather remarkable transformed a basic deceitful person into sort of a saint or a better person. That makes us a miracle. We are a surprising work of God. Yet we are still learning how to see ourselves as God sees us. We are still transforming. We are still holding up the mirror of truth that makes us look at ourselves. We are still learning to see the imagine God sees in us. Mired in the muck of sin and yet destined by God to stand up and shine as the blessed children of God. There will always be tension in the Christian life as we find ourselves stretched between two poles, having two natures, torn between two alternatives. Yet there are also the quiet convictions that gradually, day by day, decision by decision with God in Christ leading us, coaxing us, sometimes dragging us kicking and screaming into a better life and into a better self.

Gluttony: Sinning Like a Christian

Gluttony is a hard sin to grasp. Even though it’s hard to define it can be more than we think. The church has forced this link between food and sin. It may come from Genesis and the whole eating of the fruit thing. Regardless we should take it serious because Jesus took it seriously. If you recall the first temptation of Christ was after he had fasted for forty days in the wilderness was the temptation of food. The first charges against Jesus by the church leaders were not his theological principles, his teaching, or his preaching. The first charges brought against him were surrounding the eating habits of his disciples. The religious leader asked Jesus why does John the Baptist disciples fast and your disciples eat and drink? Jesus answer was vague but we cannot deny that Jesus talks a lot about parties, feasts, and eating in his parables. When Jesus ended his ministry, not his life but his public ministry, he did it with a meal: Bread and a cup. He said that the food and drink stood for everything he was and is.

So what is gluttony and why is gluttony a sin? Jesus' concern is not what gluttony does to your body but what it does to your soul. There are times when the gut becomes more important than the soul. Most of us believe that we are created in the image of God. When we indulge of excess of food we exchange the image of God in us of that of a slug and a pig. We become purely eating machines. Just like every other animal. We lose self-control. We lose the only thing that singles us out from other animals. Here me clearly. This has nothing to do with weight, body image or body size. It’s about self-control or the ability or inability to stop when we feel satisfied.

Gluttony is sinful to the degree that some of us consume too much in a world where others don’t have enough of the bare necessities of life. I heard somewhere by someone a lot wiser than I say “in the world we don’t have a hunger problem only a compassion and distribution problem.” But sin of gluttony is not limited to food. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Netflix, can be just as harmful or more harmful as over eating. Addictions are the umbrella of gluttony. We have food network channels, people take pictures of their food and share it with their friends, there is even a term called Food Porn and Foodies. But gluttony is not about overeating. People who obsess over food, people who count calories, people who try to tell you everything that is bad in the food that you are eating. Obsessing over food in either way is gluttony. So when does our concern for food become too much concern? That is what concerns Jesus C.S. Lewis describes gluttony as “getting what you want regardless however troublesome it is to others.” So where’s the sin? We all have to eat to survive. We can’t quit cold turkey or we will die. It is not the sin we despise as much as it’s the results of the sin. It’s not that we eat too much or obsess over food too much but the fact that the result is an overweight or unhealthy body that makes this sin unpleasant.  It’s the guilt, shame, and sadness that accompanies gluttony that makes it similar to other sins. How many of us would be the first to admit to the fact that if we could eat whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, as much as we wanted and never gain a pound or still have a healthy functioning body? I am all in. If we could indulge and not feel the after affects we would never see it as a sin. The problem is when we look in the mirror and sin looks a lot like us.

Shalom:

Tommy 

Greed

If we look at our current social climate it is one can see that greed is worst enemy. Out of the Seven Deadly Sins greed is the one that hard to grasp because it fuels other sins. Greed is the gasoline on the fire to sins. Greed turns love into lust, leisure into sloth, hunger into gluttony, honor into pride, righteous indignation into anger, and admiration into envy.  Greed tends to be private, stingy because there is something about Greed that puts us in competition with our neighbors and ultimately in alienation from them.  We all want more. We live by the motto of is a little is good then a lot is even better.  Simply stated the more we have the more we want. To feel better about our own greed is we tend to justify it by deflecting to corporate greed.  Isn’t the real problem of with our society is those fat cats on Wall Street? They are greedy, not us in church. The problem is desires have a way of mimicking need. In the marketing game the trick is to move us from what we desire to what we need. We live in a society ruled by the Constitution that gives us all certain rights. The sole purpose of this democracy is to give us our rights. Perhaps we are among  the first generation in our society to realize that desire has a way of being elevated to the level of need and needs gets further inflated to the level of rights. Our rights are this ever expanding list because our desires are bottomless.  I means isn’t it everyone’s right to own a cell phone. Perhaps we should starting thinking about the church as teaching us about our desires. It is here we learn how to want the right amount, things in the right way and in the right proportions. We need the type of character that is able to look at the world and all it has to offer and at certain key moments simply say, “Thank you but I am now satisfied.” It takes a huge amount of moral stamina to say, “yes I can afford it, but we are not going to buy it, because it does little to contribute to the basic goodness of our lives.” The Christian faith says that church is not about getting what we want but rather getting what God wants. When we do this God has a good time. We grab and consume, to a great degree, because we do not really know what we want, and so we grab everything in desperate fear that we might say no to the one thing that might give our lives some meaning. We need to as Jesus put it “have in mind the concerns of God and not the concerns of humanity.” Jesus reminds us that while the two maybe as one, the world in which we live in will constantly try to stretch, wear down, or erode their commonality. Greed will slowly drag us into other sins. Let us not be trapped. Let us teach our children and grandchildren well and let us receive the joy and peace that is only found in God’s way.. Join us as we uncover the dangers of sin and what we can do so God can have a good time..

Hope to see you in service..

Shalom,

Tommy 

Anger

Anger is a self-evident sin. It is a sin that we tend to hold on to for a very long time.  It is ironic that the only single time Jesus displayed anger it was not at murders, drug addicts, prostitutes, tax collectors or thieves, but with the religious folks. Jesus “lost it” in the temple with the practices of the church. That is a sobering thought that we seem to overlook when we recall Jesus’ anger. If Pride is the most dangerous and Envy the sneakiest, then Anger is the most deadly of all sin.  In the wake of all the Ferguson and now in Baltimore, we have seen the destructive effects of anger. Anger in the hands of protesters and rioters is a way of excusing them from responsibility for their actions of destruction.  It can cause demolition instead of true change. However it prompted me to ask a police officer what causes them the most fear. He responded, “Anger is my greatest fear. The bloodiest crimes, the most unpredictable calls are domestic crimes of passion. When anger is the cause of a crime, things get horribly, terribly, bloody real fast.” He said he feared anger in himself because if he didn't keep saying “I’m only doing my job” and kept his emotions in check it becomes personal. He said, “The very minute I get emotionally involved, the time when I think too much about the criminal and the crime, then I am apt to do the same, some very bad things.”  I must admit I respect his brutal honesty. Anger is only an emotion but it has the potential to lead to deadly acts.

I meet many people who when you strip away the layers of pain, uncertainty, or addictions are really just angry. Many are angry at a great injustice that has happened to them that was never resolved.  Many are angry at God. I can understand why Jesus was angry the religious leaders because many leaders today paint a picture that we are not to be angry with God. Nothing could be further from the truth. God can handle our anger. Anger is natural and necessary response in the face of injustice. It is an acknowledgement that it is not the world as God meant it to be. Anger should be expressed, preferably in a faith community, in prayer, and in conversation with God. God can handle it. God will not punish you for it. We have a God that is good enough and great enough to receive our anger, to take raw human emotions and weave them into His purpose. Anger should be expressed but not acted upon in an unconscious manner. Anger in our hands, righteous outrage practiced by us, is a deadly thing but in the hands of God our anger can bring about significant peaceful change. Join us Sunday as we look a Anger an what we can do to give it up to God and allow real change in our life..

Peace, Love and Happiness,

Tommy