P.R.A.Y.

Just about every week Time Out (Wednesday evening children’s program) ends with a time of prayer. We often use an acronym to help us with our prayer. One of those acronyms is “P.R.A.Y.” This month I’d like to share this with you.

P stands for PRAISE.

What are you happy about? What gives you joy? What do you need to thank God for? In November we find it easy to remember to be thankful, but it is important to remember to do so all year. If there doesn’t seem to be anything to be thankful about,

R stands for REPENT.

This one is a bit tricky! Repent means more than acknowledging that you’ve done something wrong, and it is about more than asking for forgiveness. When we truly repent, we do all that, and ask God to help us avoid making those mistakes.

A stands for ANYONE or ANYTHING.

We remember other people in our prayers. With the kids, this is often what they take most seriously. We all have people in our lives who are sick or need help in some way. Many times the children of our congregation pray for specific people they know from church. This is also a time to pray for people we don’t know in other places, and about various events (good and bad).

Y stands for YOURSELF.

While it is important to remember others in our prayers, many people get the idea that it is selfish to talk with God about ourselves. God does want to hear from each of us about our struggles as well as our joys and desires. It is true that some of those desires might be rooted in selfishness, but it is in prayer that we also hear that from God.

A Place Where People Are Made Whole

Love, acceptance and forgiveness - those three things are absolutely essential to any ministry that will consistently bring people to maturity and wholeness. If the church is to be the force for God in the world that it should be, it must learn to love people, accept them and forgive them.

The church is in the world to minister salvation to people. The word "salvation" in its broadest sense means to bring to wholeness. It's interchangeable with the word "healing".

Within the community of the gathered church, then people need to be saved, healed, and brought to wholeness in every area of their lives. But before there can be a coming to wholeness, certain guarantees must be made to people, otherwise they will not risk themselves to be open with us enough to receive healing.

The guarantee we must make to people is that they will be loved - always, under every circumstance with no exception. The second guarantee is that they will be totally accepted without reservation- The third thing we must guarantee people is that no matter how miserably they fail or how blatantly they sin, unreserved forgiveness is theirs for the asking. If people are not guaranteed these three things, they will never allow us the marvelous privilege of bringing wholeness to them through the fellowship of the church.

According to I John 3:14, the evidence that we're children of God is our love for others... I know I'm a child of God because I love. Today the church of Jesus Christ needs to make a bold commitment to love people and then dedicate itself to fulfilling that commitment. Our whole life-style should tell people, "If you come around here, were going to love you. No matter who you are or what you've done or how you look, smell or behave, we're going to love you."

God so loved the world that God gave. That's it! ...Love is commitment and operates independently of what we feel or do not feel. We need to extend this love to everyone who comes into our Church.

When love, acceptance and forgiveness prevail, the church of Jesus Christ becomes what Jesus was in the world: a center of love designed for the healing of broken people, and a force for God.

A Time to Mourn

To everything there is a season...a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance...  (Ecclesiastes 3)

For many of us in Goshen, this is the time to weep, the time to mourn.

We will all miss Sean Hurley.  His death leaves a hole in many lives.  It also unearths a wide range of emotions; sorrow and sadness, pain and woundedness, guilt and regret, anxiety and dread, perhaps even frustration and anger.  These are all natural responses to death, especially death by suicide.

We all deal with grief in different ways.  Some find it most helpful to talk with other people while others prefer to journal or write.  Some find it helpful to share their writing while others prefer to keep it to themselves.  Some find it most helpful to reach out and help others, while others need someone to reach out to them.

This evening (Thursday at 7pm) we will devote our regularly scheduled service of prayer and healing to praying for Sean’s family and beginning to process our grief.  We are not going to run from or avoid the matter of suicide.  Rather, we want to create some space to grapple with it openly and honestly.  Greg Hinkle, a counselor with the Samaritan Center, will be present and available to help us all in this process.

If you are not comfortable speaking what you feel or you were not able to attend the service, we hope that our blog will provide another avenue for people to share their thoughts and feelings. Click on the "Comments" link below to share your thoughts.

Here are some questions to consider:

1) Where were you when you heard the news, and what did you think and feel?

2) What will you always remember about Sean?

3) What did Sean give you that you will have with you always?

The "I AM..." Statements of Jesus

We have begun a sermon series called "The 'I AM' Statements of Jesus".  Each statement can be found in the Gospel of John.  Simply put, these are the ways that Jesus described himself.  So far we have explored, "I AM the Bread of Life" (John 6:25-35), and "I AM the Light of the World" (John 1:1-9; 8:12).

Over the next few weeks we will look at:

"I AM the Gate for the Sheep" (John 10:1-10) --- March 15

"I AM the Good Shepherd" (John 10:11-18) --- March 22

"I AM the True Vine" (John 15:1-11) --- March 29

"I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:1-7) --- April 5/Palm Sunday

"I AM the Resurrection and the Life" (John 11:1-27) --- April 12/Easter Sunday

As we continue with this series, we invite you to visit this blog and leave a note.  Let us know what stands out to you and what you are learning from Jesus' descriptions of himself.

Blog changes

Watch for changes to the blog throughout Lent as we begin to use it in some new ways.  You will still be able to find updates on Alan when appropriate.