April 21, 2001
Our Redeemer 25th Blackhawk, J’ville
Spoke to two members of your congregation in the last 24 hours. Kurt Heller…golf “Big Bob” “Don’t want to.”
Our Reedeemer … made a horrible mistake this week.. I knew my brother’s neighbor was an elder in your church.. Asked him about the particulars of your church’s anniversary. He looked puzzled.. I kept talking about that “really cool Lutheran church…” .. then he told me, “I go to Salem.” Oops.
Your church was born to expand your horizons… What better time than your 25th birthday to do it again?
My Grandpa Bradbury.. active, ornery, fun-loving… Loved to play in his yard because it was like a jungle Stroke… chair… all he could see was a thirty foot patch of yard.. Became obsessed with it. His focus became so narrow than he lost sight of everything else.
Our church: eternal flame…actually a red lightbulb in a gold chain…trouble was, the eternal flame kept going out. This is embarrassing when your eternal flame keeps going out. Committee formed… Sat in church staring at the eternal flame, watching for a flicker… I don’t think they heard a sermon for months. It is so tempting to get comfy in ---the way we worship ---what we sing ---how we hold our service ---how we pray
Sometimes we need to get shocked into reality.
G’ma & G’pa Orr… Holy Roller service
Matt.. baritone
We test our worship against what we’ve done before, instead of what God wants for us… we can only see that thirty-foot patch of yard.
I come back from camp every summer singing.. “The Joy of the Lord, is my strength!”.. And sometimes enter a church where we sing… “Our order of worship is our strength!” or “Our redecorated sanctuary is our strength!”
No..no… It’s the joy of our Lord. I once asked my Grandma how she would die… “Of happiness.” “Huh?” “Well, every day I know the Lord, I get more and more joy. One of these days when I just get so much joy I can’t stand it, Jesus will say, ‘Okay, you’re ready for heaven!’”
Helen…most joyous saint I know… “Jesus loves you and I do too!”
Let me tell you of a few worship experiences that I’ve experienced… that have shocked me back into The Joy of the Lord..
---Little church in southern Illinois…catacomb service
---Dylan…prayer… “Awesome!”
---Camp… deaf boy
---Tammy.. dance
---Lady in Mt. Vernon…. Prayer chair
---Finally…the most holy, profound prayer, I’ve ever heard. “Jesus, us guys here on the back row ain’t too good. Please help us not screw up too bad.” (The Lord’s prayer in miniature.)
Let me give you a beautiful idea to begin your next 25 years as a community of Christ …. Diversity….
Be diverse …. Be bold…be daring… be creative in what you expect of God. Expand the size of your God… let Him be the God of dance, the God of music, the God of laughter, and tradition…and let Him be the God of Joy.
Let your God get bigger. Don’t confine Him to the tiny box you’ve created and covered with the tight wrapping-paper of tradition and custom, and your own personal culture.
Look beyond that 30 foot patch of yard that you’ve created and called, “How God should be worshipped.”
---Martin Luther’s greatest accomplishment was to clear the boards of the needless riff-raff the church had collected over the centuries. He was the father of the Back to Basics movement. On your 25th, please honor him, honor the church, honor Jesus Christ, by doing this again…and again.. and again.
---Don’t be afraid to simply pray, “Jesus, us guys here on the back row ain’t too good. Please help us not screw up too bad.”
---Don’t Nobody
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