Lent – A Spiritual Adventure

Dear Friends,

In a couple weeks, Lent will begin. Baptists and those churches with an independent streak have gone both ways on Lent. Some have embraced it and others have treated it more like a curiosity. The Advent, Lent, Easter, Pentecost cycle is closely connected to the practice of following a church year where the work of God and life of Christ and the Spirit unfold like a story from one month to the next. It is often held together by an organized collection of scripture passages for the year called the lectionary. An Old Testament, Gospel, and New Testament reading are assigned to each Sunday. Historically, some free churches have avoided such things in the spirit of not wanting a human structure placed on the Word of God. That’s the tradition from which my faith was formed. Our holy days were Christmas, Watch Night Service, Easter, and Mother’s Day. We had our own type of human imposed structure.

I started pastoral ministry in the 1980’s and David and Karen Mains were doing a radio program called, “The Chapel of the Air”. One of them came up with an idea. If churches were having trouble with the idea of lent, what if you had a “50 Day Spiritual Adventure” instead? Tricky, huh? It started on the first Sunday in lent and continued to Easter. They lead regional training programs in January/February, marketed material for worship, study groups, children, etc. It was a brilliant way for the evangelical churches to embrace the idea of a season of devotion and discipleship training prior to Easter, without calling it lent. Either way, we were on a spiritual adventure. That’s what the season is about.

At Eastwood, our spiritual adventure will be about prayer. Sundays during Lent will focus on the prayers of Jesus. What can we learn, not so much from what Jesus taught about prayer, but from what Jesus actually prayed? We will pray in worship, but I will offer each Sunday the opportunity to come to the front of the sanctuary after worship for more personal prayer.

Wednesday Study Groups will also be part of the adventure. You have heard people say, “What Would Jesus Do?” It all started from a novel by Charles Sheldon written in 1897 called, “In His Steps”. The first chapter sets the stage. A church faces a crisis that results in a group of members promising to never make a decision or take significant action without first asking, “What would Jesus do?” I have a bunch of the books and you’ll need to read a few chapters each week and come in the morning or evening ready to discuss the characters, our lives, and the scriptures.

The adventure has other mile markers as well.

• Ash Wednesday Service will be lead by Mary Lou Green.
• Palm Sunday will be celebration and baptism.
• Maundy Thursday Service will start with the traditional covered dish dinner and conclude with a presentation and communion.
• Good Friday Service will be in the sanctuary and focus on the cross.
• Easter Sunrise will be at a new location this year, Round Top in Schiller Park. It is an attempt to wider our circle of churches who participate.
• And Easter Sunday will be pure joy!

Let’s make it a spiritual adventure because God loves adventures!

Pastor Paul

2010 is a new year…

Dear Friends,

2010 is a new year and the beginning of a new decade. It’s a good time to look back and ahead. The concept was familiar to the Romans. January was named after Janus, the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. He is most often depicted as having two faces or heads, facing in opposite directions. He was said to be able to look backwards and forward at the same time. That’s what we do this time of year.

Looking backwards allows us to get perspective on what actually happened. As we get some distance, history takes shape. It becomes clearer. Historian David C. McCullough writes:

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are”.

Looking backwards gives us the opportunity to change.

But dwelling on the past may not be helpful. If we focus too long on the past, we start to change it. David Ben Gurion humorously notes: Anyone who believes you can’t change history has never tried to write his memoirs. I remember the Christmas holiday my 99-year-old grandmother told a childhood story of growing up in Albany. At the end of tale, my mother looked at her and said, “Now mother, you know it didn’t happen anything like that.” Over time, we romanticize the past, magnify our peculiar memories, and start to shape our life decisions around perceived events and conditions we cannot change.

I never read a Harry Potter book, but I’ve seen the movies. There is a scene in the basement where Harry has found a mirror that allows you to see life the way you wished it had been or was. The cautious Dumbledore warns Harry: “Many have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible…It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live…”

At such a point, the Apostle Paul writes,

“…But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

An old classmate of mine, Asha, was determined to ride a bike. Wearing a traditional sarai in her homeland of India made such a thing impossible. Now in America, she put on pants and tried at the ripe old age of 35. Her attempts were futile and all the neighbors watched in hysterics as she kept falling and eventually gave up. Late that night, one of those neighbors called sympathetically. “The secret is to not look down, but look ahead, down the road, and you will keep your balance.”

As we start the new decade, let’s not look down, but down the road, putting our past in pespective and pressing on toward the heavenly goal in Christ Jesus.

- Pastor Paul Bailey

The perfect formula for Christmas…

Friends

James Moore says he has a psychologist friend who has the perfect formula for Christmas. “You just put your mind in neutral and go where you are shoved!” Of course, our goal at Christmas is to stay engaged and not just endure it. It is a season to enjoy, relish, savor, celebrate, and learn. But I supposed, if God were to do the shoving. Hmmm.

A few years back, Henry Blackaby wrote a book, Experiencing God, in which he made the case that our purpose is to do the will of God. We ask ourselves, “What is my purpose in life?”. (That’s where the Purpose Driven Life opens with the words, “It’s not about you.”)  So we ask God for a detailed road map for us to follow. The problem is that God’s will is one day at a time. The way through life becomes a pilgrimage. Jesus said, “Follow me”. Jesus said, “I am the way”, not “I will show you the way” or “Here is the plan”. Blackaby concludes:

God’s desire is for you to become involved in what He is doing. Finding out what He is doing helps you know what He will want to do through you. (p 29)

My friend Ross lives his life like that. Prayerfully, he looks for what God is doing that day or week, and joins in. It takes him to unexpected places and people, but always to divine encounters. How about trying it this Christmas?

1. Each day and week, prayerfully search for what God is doing.

2. Join in. Jump in. Try it. Be spontaneous.

Of course, it is the “Christmas Way”, Joseph, shepherds, and magi.  They all had no idea where God was taking them, but they followed and experienced God in a divine encounter.

–Pastor Paul Bailey

Hebrews 13:8

Dear Friends,

As I write this, we have just finished the 2 weeks of “Yesterday and Tomorrow” meetings. I started out each session confessing that it is tempting for a new pastor to think that there is a blank slate ahead and that everything is new in the church just because the pastor is new. Of course, that’s not true. Each person has a history and the church, as a whole, has a history. The good news is:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever! Hebrews 13:8

The previous verse asks us to “remember..” because the same Jesus who led the church in the past is here today. The same Jesus who inspired a group of Baptists to meet in the Palace Theatre, then buy a mansion on James St, and then expand into a new building, new programs, with new members is that same Jesus who is with us today!

So I asked two questions. First, how did you come to Eastwood Baptist? For most, the answer involved another person. Some were carried in by their parents and some were invited by a friend. For those who came on their own, they often found a new or renewed friend and it soon became home. I was amazed at how many walked to church or lived in Eastwood, at least in the beginning. (It may be that we should once again try to find ways to meet neighbors. We are certainly surrounded by people.) Many were looking for a Baptist church specifically and others came from various Christian backgrounds. Some came to a worship service, but not all. Some were invited to an event or a Wednesday night service or a women’s meeting. And some were searching for a church with certain qualities and found it at Eastwood Baptist.

Second, I told the story of the spyglass and how the king and his people looked at their kingdom and saw what might be or could be. We passed the spyglass and I asked what each person would see if they looked at Eastwood Baptist. Most saw more people. Many saw younger people and remembered youth experiences from the past. But other images came into focus, as well. Some saw various generations mixed together and others saw programs for separate groups. Some saw ministry in the community, music, small groups, caring groups, wider involvement among men, children, and youth. A few saw men in the choir. (Guess who?) More than one saw “parties”. One saw educational events for the community. Financial stability and improvements to the building appeared in some people’s vision. Some saw different styles of worship and some saw just what is happening now.

Thank you for joining me on this journey to yesterday and tomorrow. With God’s help, we will make some of the things in the spyglass come true. We must not lose a focus on the future. I’ll keep the spyglass on the top shelf. But most importantly, we must remember the teachings of our faith are constant. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever! Alleluia!

Pastor Paul

But it wasn’t foolish to God

Dear Friends,

For me, each October my thoughts turn to world mission and with World Communion Sunday coming and a missionary visit with Kristy Engel coming the month, I thought I would share this reflection I wrote when I realized that our American Baptist Churches in Central New York would be forever intertwined with the Burmese. It is the story of how that connection began nearly 200 years ago.

“…Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? …For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” Corinthians 1:20, 25

It was foolish for Adoniram Judson living outside Boston in the early 1800’s to become convinced that God wanted him to bring the gospel to a “foreign” land; because many fine, outstanding Christians in the early 1800’s believed that if God had wanted “those people” to hear about Christ, God would have gone himself. But it wasn’t foolish to God.

It was foolish for Judson to leave the comfort of his home outside of Boston, let alone ask a wife to join him, because it was clear that they might never return to see family again in this world. But it wasn’t foolish to God.

It was foolish for many Baptists in American to raise $3000 to help the Congregationalists send their missionary, Adoniram Judson, because Judson was NOT a Baptist. But it wasn’t foolish to God.

It was not foolish for Adoniram to study his Bible on the long journey, but it was foolish for him to become convinced that he should change his life long Christian belief in infant baptism and in the midst of an oceanic journey decide to change beliefs and become a Baptist because he would be disappointing many people. But it wasn’t foolish to God.

And it was foolish for Judson to write back to the Congregationalists who sent and supported him and tell them he was no longer a Congregationalist, because he would be without support and could be accused of misrepresenting himself as one thing and now another. But it wasn’t foolish to God.

And it was foolish for the Baptists to form a missionary society to support Judson, a missionary already on the field, because everyone knows that these things need to be planned and prepared way in advance and who knows; maybe he would change again, into something else after this. What kind of man was he? But it wasn’t foolish to God.

It was foolish for Adoniram to stop off in India to visit British Missionary William Carey because England and America were in conflict and the British East India Company stiffly opposed missionary work at the time and Judson would have to leave quickly. But it wasn’t foolish to God.

It was foolish for Judson, while in India, to make a huge decision about his future ministry based on the fact that he was in danger, had to leave India quickly, and the only ship available was going to Burma because everyone knows it is not wise to make big decisions in a crisis and besides, more than one attempt at mission work there had failed. But it wasn’t foolish to God.

It was foolish for Judson to serve as a missionary for 6 years before gaining one convert to Christianity, but it was the foolishness of God that allowed him to lead many more to Christ after that in addition to writing the first English-Burmese Dictionary and translating the Bible into Burmese. And as thousands of Burmese (Karen, Chin, Kachin, etc.) became Christians, it was foolish for the Karen to include in their national anthem a phrase the envisioned a time when they would be able to send missionaries around the world just as missionaries came to their country, but it was the foolishness of God to fulfill that dream by arranging for thousands of Burmese Christians to be sent around the world as refugees.

Today, it is foolish to think that God would choose Syracuse as an ideal place for refugees who have lived their entire lives in tropical climates to live, but it is the foolishness of God that is wiser than man’s wisdom. And it may be foolish to get involved or it just maybe the foolishness of God

Pastor Paul Bailey