Brrrrr! Well it has been quite a week. Recorded snow. Cabin fever. Panic at the grocery stores. Of course the most shocking of all…the weather predictors were right! Maybe it is the end of the world. I trust you and your family had made it through round one. As I’m writing we are gearing up for round 2 due to hit Tuesday-Wednesday. We have had damage to our fellowship building. We have major water damage including a partially collapsed ceiling in the men’s restroom. We have water standing in the restrooms out into the main room floor. We have been working with the insurance company since last Saturday. Due to the damage we will have to postpone some events planned for the building as well as make adjustments for Sunday School. At this point we do not know how long repairs will take. Please be patient with us.

On the positive side about 60 brave souls made it to worship on Sunday morning. Thanks to Brian Hickerson for clearing the parking lot and to Mark Dix and Bob Lowery for shovel duty.

We still have a meeting planned for Sunday afternoon at 4:30 for our mission and ministry teams. This meeting is for anyone who is interested in reaching out to our community. We would love to have a representative from each Sunday School class at that meeting. We’ve got some things we would like to do in 2011 and this would be a great way to involve your class in a ministry project.

I hope to see you and your family as we gather for worship this coming Lord’s Day.

Rod

Ah sunshine! Isn’t Oklahoma weather wonderful? 70 degrees on Saturday then three days later the worst blizzard in state history. Followed by another 5 inches on snow. Followed, a couple of days later, by 60-degree temperatures. You got to love it.

It was nice to see folks out and about this past Sunday. We had a great time of Bible study and worship. We also had a good and productive meeting with our mission and ministry team. We discussed some ministry projects for the year and we put together a list to help our Sunday School classes develop quarterly projects. You’ll be seeing that list in your Sunday School box this coming Sunday. We want to encourage each of our classes to plan a ministry or mission project each quarter. We want you to be involved with reaching out to our community and touching our world with the Gospel. What you will find is a list of suggestions for the kind of things you might do. This is not an exhaustive list but hopefully it will get you thinking. As you do your projects be sure and take some pictures and give us a report we can share through the newsletter and on the screen before services. We look forward to seeing what you do!

I’ll see you and your family as we gather for worship this coming Lord’s Day.

Rod

Foundational to the life we’ve been called to as the people of God is the virtue of humility. Real humility is a hallmark of new life in Christ. I don’t mean the kind of humility that blushes and says, “You’re so kind to say that” while inwardly thinking, “You have no idea just how right you are to think so highly of me.” I mean the kind of humility born of a true knowledge of self. Humility born of knowing exactly who and what you are.

The most humbling thing in the world is to see yourself as you are rather than, as you want to be. The real you not the one you hope others see. I find the reading of The Valley of Vision (a collection of Puritan prayers) good for my soul. It is good because it is so different from most things you find from contemporary writers. I saw myself this morning in my reading:

Thou art good beyond all thought, but I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind; my lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel, and my ways reluctant to amend…My faculties have been a weapon of revolt against thee; as a rebel I have misused my strength, and served the foul adversary of thy kingdom…Grant that through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross.

We tend to read that as self-loathing. That’s not it at all. It’s genuine humility. Recognizing I’m a sinner owing my life to the grace of God. It’s life free from of delusion and grounded in reality. It is a life that glories in the grace of God. Life’s a lot freer when you stop pretending.

I’ll see you Sunday.

Rod

I love church music, I always have. Even as a young person I liked listening to choirs and the music of the church. Don’t miss understand me when I say I love church music. Do not hear me say, “I love the church music of the past exclusively.” I love many of the new hymns and choruses! Granted some of the newer stuff is not very deep. It will not stand the test of time but then not all the music of the past has survived. Of the thousands of hymns Charles Wesley wrote we sing a handful. Not every hymn by Isaac Watts remains a perennial favorite. Music does evolve and that is not wrong nor is it a bad thing. The Gospel must be spoken and sung in the language of the people if it is to reach the masses.

Part of my devotional reading is the reading of hymns. I can’t “read” music and that helps. When I’m reading hymns I’m reading the words, I’m getting the sense of the movement of the message – the tune isn’t stuck in my head (unless I’m reading a familiar hymn). One of my favorite hymnbooks for devotional purposes is Gadsby’s Hymnal first published in England in 1838. While there are hymns by Isaac Watts and John Newton most of the writers are unknown to me. Pastors and poets of past generations whose hymns have not been preserved. In my reading this week I came across this hymn by Gadsby. He speaks of the believer’s rest in Christ. Listen to verses 5 and 6 (there are 7 verses total):

Here’s life, and light, and holiness,
And righteousness divine;
A boundless treasure, all of grace,
And faith says, All is mine.

O what a rest is Christ to me!
How precious and how true!
From guilt and sin he sets me free,
And gives me glory too.

Looking for a good devotional book? Pick up a hymnal and give some serious thought to what we are singing. I’ll see you Sunday.

Rod