The NEWSLETTER Newsletter CONTENT March 1997 Page 1

Eye to eye

Early in his career, Dr. Robert J. McCracken, former pastor of the Riverside Church, New York City, was minister of a church in Canada. For some reason an elderly woman took a vehement dislike to him and conveyed her feelings to others. Eventually the word reached him.

He dreaded the day when his parish calls would take him to her door. Finally that day came and after knocking a few times he heard a faint sound inside. He knelt down and looked through the keyhole to see if anyone was there. To his surprise he saw an eye staring through. With a chuckle the woman remarked, “Pastor, this is the first time we have seen eye to eye.”

“Yes,” he said, “and we had to get down on our knees to do it.”

—John A. Johnston

in Sunshine Magazine

The grandeur of life

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

—Albert Camus

Spiritual disciplines

There is something sad in anyone’s running from church to church trying to get an injection of “the joy of the Lord.” Joy is not found in singing a particular kind of music or getting with the right kind of group or even in exercising the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, good as all those may be. Joy is found in obedience. When the power that is in Jesus reaches into our work and play and redeems them, there will be joy where once there was mourning. To overlook that is to miss the meaning of the incarnation.

—Richard J. Foster

in Celebration of Discipline

Special dates

  • Third Sunday in Lent, March 2, 1997
  • World Day of Prayer, March 7, 1997
  • Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 9, 1997
  • One Great Hour of Sharing, March 9, 1997
  • Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 16, 1997
  • Palm Sunday, March 23, 1997
  • Good Friday, March 28, 1997
  • Easter, March 30, 1997

Words of welcome

(Feel free to use these in your worship bulletins.)

(Palm Sunday) Welcome! It was the children on Palm Sunday who cheered the loudest. They loved him simply, because they knew how much he loved them. If by chance your faith has lost its childlike simplicity, we hope that this hour of worship will restore it to you. And we offer our friendship to help in the restoration.

(Easter) CHRIST IS RISEN — HE IS RISEN INDEED! We greet those who are visiting with us today in the name of our risen Savior. We are gathered as a community of Christians. Our center is Jesus Christ. We are here to know again the touch of his forgiving and healing hand. Please be sure to introduce yourself to Pastor (name) and sign our guest register as you leave.

The welcome mat is out for you! We are happy to have you here today as a partner in prayer, in song and in the hearing of God’s word. We hope that you will stay for coffee after worship, so that we may become friends and be strangers no longer.

  • Joy is the flag that is flown in the heart when the Master is in residence.
  • When someone asks, “Where’s your better half?” tell them it is yet to come.
  • The pessimist sees problems as difficulties and complains, “Ow!” The optimist accepts problems as challenges and exclaims, “Wow!”

—William A. Ward

  • In the presence of hope — faith is born. In the presence of faith — love becomes a possibility! In the presence of love — miracles happen!

—Robert Schuller

in The Be Happy Attitudes

  • A Christian is the keyhole through which other folks see God.

—Robert E. Gibson

  • The highways of history are strewn with the wreckage of nations that forgot God.

—Unknown

  • A good way to forget your troubles is to help others out of theirs.

Easter lasts forever

I ran across a tract the other day entitled, “Easter Lasts Forever.” Easter lasts forever! Isn’t that what we believe? This life is not always pleasant. In fact it can deal us some harsh blows — death, loss of job, divorce, war, rejection, financial difficulties, and the list goes on and on until it seems like Good Friday everyday. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But the believer in Christ looks forward. Yes, it may be Friday, but Sunday is coming! This is our eternal hope. The world may seem to be falling apart, but Jesus still reigns. His resurrection proves that he has conquered sin, death and the devil. It guarantees that those who have died in faith will be raised and will live forever with Jesus and all believers in heaven. When that is considered, all of our problems of this world pale in comparison to the glory to come. Yes, Easter lasts forever!

—John Merrill

St. John Lutheran Church,

Fraser, MI

The family that “nets” together...

Sue Shellenbarger wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal (January 29, 1995) entitled “Too many gadgets turn working parents into ‘virtual parents’.” Speaking about the tendency for high-tech parents to reach out to their families through cellular phone, e-mail, faxes, computers, and pagers, she stated that high-tech gear fails families when they try to use it:

1. As a substitute for warm human contact.

2. As a Band-Aid for too much absence.

3. As a stand-in for adults.

She closed the article with these words, “The trick for working parents is to find the middle ground — where technology enriches our ties with children, rather than underscores our separations.

Full of God

Mother Teresa tells the story of an atheist who came one day to her home for the dying. A sickly, maggot-covered man had just been brought in from the gutters, and some volunteers were bathing and caring for him, unaware that the atheist was watching. Later he said, “I came here godless. I came here full of hatred. I am going full of God. I have seen God’s love in action. I have seen that through the hands of that sister, through her face, through her tenderness — so full of love for that man. Now I believe.”

—Lee Strobel

in What Would Jesus Say?

“Them” are us

The Bible tells us that we are to “bear one another’s burdens.” Somehow, I think that admonition has less to do with the mechanics of assistance and more with the way in which we regard those less fortunate. When we look at those who are homeless, hungry or burdened by child care and joblessness, it is not enough to regard them as recipients of our charity or tax dollars. Those of us who live by the principles of the Bible must literally take on those problems as our own. Those who might need assistance are not “them,” they are us.

—Dale Hanson Bourke

in The War Cry

Service begins at home

We sometimes use service to justify our neglect of some other responsibilities, for example, our families. Service begins at home. If we don’t serve in little ways the people we love best, we may question our motivation for serving those we don’t know as well. Service means putting ourselves below someone else, and it’s harder to do that with those we know best. I have marveled many times at [my wife’s] commitment to serve her children and me and her willingness to put her family before her own comfort, convenience and out-of-the-home career. We can’t serve our family if we’re not home. I don’t believe God calls us to frenzied living. If we’re scooting from one meeting or commitment to another, out nine nights a week, getting acquainted with our family as we pass through the house, then either we have not learned to say no to the demands, or we’re not responding to them in a healthy fashion.

—Ronald E. Wilson

in Stretching the Soul, Learning the Art

of Watching God Work

Highway of life

While we’re speeding down the highway

Let’s count mileposts in sequence.

They all seem so close together,

Almost like a picket fence.

Our birthdays, too, are in the fast lane,

Which should make this thought serene:

From life’s milestones to its tombstones,

There is little space between.

Hence, this moral: Let’s start giving

Much less time to stress and strife;

While we race to make a living,

Let’s take time to make a life.

—Dave Wadley

Just what’s needed

God never wastes time with explanations and he always knows when to speak and when to be silent. Perhaps right now, you need only to be held in his arms. Remember they are “everlasting arms” and they are always underneath to hold you. God knows you so well, and he will never do the wrong thing.

—Eugenia Price

in Share my Pleasant Stones

A journey with Christ

Lent is an occasion for us to journey with Christ ... into tomorrow. For you never walk with Christ long but what the dawn breaks, the sun shines and hope breaks through.

—C. Neil Straight

A prayer for all time

The following prayer was given by a senior girl at her graduation from a Washington, D.C. high school:

Dear God, grant us one thing before we leave the sheltered reassurance of our childhood. Show us life. Not an empty shallow world of shallow people and shallow dreams, but real life ... For we have known the bliss of childhood as well as the passion of adolescence ... We want to make the world a better place, but we don’t know how. We want to throw our arms around our brothers and our sisters, but our hands cannot reach. We want to break the cycle of violence and the bonds of injustice in our society, but we’re not strong. Smile on us when we drink from the waters of truth. When we are old, reassure us that our struggle helped to make the world a kinder, gentler and more peaceful place. And please, God, don’t let us die without ever having lived.

—John Song in a sermon entitled “Get A Life”

First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto, CA

The first step

The path to solid, supportive, healthy relationships, self-respect and a quality life starts with the usually painful decision to do the right thing.

—Dr. Laura Schlessinger

in How Could You Do That?

You can’t just stay there

Now, you cannot go on being the good egg forever; you must either hatch or rot.

—C.S. Lewis

Better with age?

A little girl climbed into the lap of her grandfather and studied his white and balding head. She ran her fingers along the deep wrinkles road-mapping his face and neck.

“Did God make you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Did God make me, too?” she

wondered.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Well,” she shrugged, “don’t you think he’s doing a better job now than he used to?”

—Steve Goodier

A Christian is like...

A Christian is like a good watch: he has an open face, busy hands, is made of pure gold, is well-regulated, and is full of good works.

A Christian is a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, and a hand through which Christ helps.

—14,000 Quips and Quotes, ed. E.C. McKenzie

God knows what’s ahead

I’ve often thought it curious how few people Jesus raised from the dead. He healed hundreds and fed thousands, but as far as we know he raised only three: the daughter of Jairus, the boy near Nain and Lazarus. Why so few? Could it be because he knew he’d be doing them no favors? Could it be because he couldn’t get any volunteers? Could it be that once someone is there, the last place they want to return to is here?

We must trust God. We must trust not only that he does what is best, but that he knows what is ahead.

—Max Lucado

in A Gentle Thunder