Everything here represents my own opinion and not the opinion of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection or the United Methodist Church.
My office at the church is just down the hall from the office work room. Every Thursday afternoon I hear the thump-thump-thump of the risograph machine churning out Sermon Notes and Study Guides and Prayer Guides for the bulletin. This week, however, production has started for Candlelight Christmas Eve bulletins and will continue through tomorrow.
19,100 bulletins are being produced for the weekend. If predictions are accurate for attendance 1 in every 100 people in the Kansas City metro area will attend a Christmas Eve service here at Resurrection. It is things like this that remind me there are many distinct things about this place - God is at work.
Regardless of numbers in a particular congregation, Christmas Eve is one of the greatest opportunities to reach unchurched people with the good news of Jesus Christ. My prayers are that people will hear again or for the first time the story of the birth of Jesus and recognize that this story is for them. This is also my prayer for myself.
On Saturday, I was able to take part in a mission project with my small group. At The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, one of the entry level mission opportunities is called
FaithWork. It was a great experience. We arrived on Saturday morning, signed up for one of about a dozen projects that were
available, received driving directions and the name of a contact person when we arrived.
We drove downtown to
City Union Mission. My wife, Nicole, and I served in the Christmas Store, which is a space set up to distribute Christmas gifts to low income families. An individual signed up, received an appointment time, and chose a particular number of gifts to be wrapped and delivered on December 22. I enjoyed the time and opportunity to practice my faith.
Tuesday is my assigned day for hospital visits. Each of the pastors of Congregational Care has a particular day to which we are assigned to visit people in the hospital, pray before surgery, etc. Today I had five visits in four different and traveled forty miles. This has been the busiest day for me thus far for hospital visits.
It is truly a blessing to be with people during this time. Being a representative of God and God's presence is a special blessing and responsibility. Being in a hospital brings an immediacy to events and circumstances. There is the history of the individual and then the next steps. Sometimes there is:
- waiting for test results.
- waiting for further treatment.
- wondering what might be next.
- preparing to go home.
- preparing for death.
Each of these is important and has a place in our Christian life. The blessing of Advent is anticipating Christ's coming into our lives - in hospital or home.
During Staff Chapel on November 30, Adam Hamilton spoke on Part IV of Thomas Merton's Life and Holiness.
On page 73 of Life and Holiness, Thomas Merton writes:
It is quite possible to "believe in Christ," in the sense of mentally accepting the truth that he lived on earth, died, and rose from the dead, and yet still live "in the flesh," according to the standards of a greedy, violent, unjust and corrupt society, without noticing any real contradiction in one's life. But the real meaning of faith is the rejction of everything that is not Christ in order that all life, all truth, all hope, all reality may be sought and found "in Christ." (Merton, Thomas. Life and Holiness. New York: Image Books Doubleday, 1963.)
There is a difference between each of the following:
- Orthodoxy - right belief
- Orthopraxy - right practice
- Orthopathos - right feelings
Orthopathos particularly made an impression on me. I had not considered what it meant to have right feelings about God. Right feelings and the right attitude - an openness to God's action in one's life and the ability to simply trust God. You can assent to and do the "right things" but without faith and trust in God there is something lacking in our life of faith. Christian discipleship is a call to giving all that we are to God in a way that goes beyond our thoughts and actions.
