….which explains the dearth of posts on this blog over the last 8 months.

Yikes.

Nate

What is a small group?  Sometimes people call it a “home bible study.”  I can’t speak for anyone else, but that term just doesn’t cut it for my small group.

My small group is about more than a “home” – it’s about being a family.  In a home, it’s possible to cover up the foibles.  When I know someone is coming to my home, I take time to pick up the toys, to sweep the floor, to clean the bathroom, to tidy up.  So when my visitor arrives, they see a house in order – but it’s not really real.  It’s a façade, a show, a pretending that I have it all together.  By contrast, when you are in a family, you get to see everybody up close, warts and all – and you love them anyway!  That’s what a small group provides – the opportunity to love and be loved, to know and be known, in all of our imperfections.

My small group is about more than the Bible – it’s about a safe place.  Let’s face it.  In some ways, the Bible is a hard book to understand.  It can be confusing.  And it’s easy to say, “I’ll just leave that stuff to the experts, I’ll never be able figure it out.”  By contrast, a small group is a safe place where we are encouraged to interact with the Bible.  But we aren’t left on our own.  By sharing our own experiences of how God impacts our lives with the rest of our group, we find more understanding of the truths of the Bible than we would ever figure out on our own!

My small group is about more than a “study” – it’s a place to experience fellowship.  In a study, many times the material studied will make it into our mind (intellectually), but it never makes it into our heart where it can flow out through our actions.  By contrast, a small group is a place where fellowship happens.  A healthy small group provides opportunities to put your study into practice through service.  It provides opportunities to connect on levels other than simply the intellectual; where social, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs are also met.

Sometimes a small group is called a “home bible study”.  But it’s about so much more than a home bible study – it’s where life happens together.  Regardless of what we call it, a small group is a place where we do life together with people who desire to follow the same path that we are journeying – a path that leads to life in Jesus Christ.

I absolutely LOVE our small group!  It is my favorite time of the week, period.  My small group has been a lifeline for me more than once.  I hope everyone who reads this gets the opportunity to be a part of something like it.  It’s amazing.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently!  If you didn’t know better you’d think this blog was dead.  :-/

I will get back to it eventually here.  Still have to post about CIY, camp, SummerSalt, and a bunch of other topics I’ve had on my mind over the past 6 months.

Bear with me….

What creeps me out is how fast the bear moves when the thunder hits. It’s as fast as a cat!

I came into work humming the tune to O Holy Night, the crystal-shattering Christmas carol that has mesmerized audiences and carol-singers for since 1847.

Yikes.  (I mean, in regards to the above link…)

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

But was it?  Was it really a holy night?  And what, exactly, does it take to make a night (or a day for that matter) holy?

I suspect it takes a lot more than a bunch of brightly shining stars to make a night holy.  And it would probably even take a lot more than a company of angels in a shepherds’ field.  Would the birth of the Christ-child suffice to make a night holy?

I’m just thinking out loud here, but if it was a holy night due to the presence of Jesus, then wouldn’t the next day have been holy too?  And why aren’t there any songs written about that?

The presence of God makes things holy; I suspect that there is no doubt about that.  But the presence of God was with humanity all the years of Jesus’ earthly life, then gone for 50 days, then back for a return visit via the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and that same Presence has been changing lives for the last 2000 years.  If every day is holy, then is any day really holy?  Or any night for that matter?

I’m not ripping the carol.  Really, I’m not.  I’ve never written any songs, and certainly never will write anything that will last 163 years and counting.  But O Holy Night is probably bad theology, that’s my best guess.

Oh, and the magi weren’t at the manger either.  Verse two isn’t any better than verse one…..

It’s been a long time since I’ve highlighted some quotes from my preacher.  Heck it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on the blog, period!  Been busy with other endeavors, I guess.

Anyway, here’s a few good ones from some recent messages, starting with one that’s super-applicable at Christmas time…

“What if you lived as generously as possible while still meeting the needs of your family?”

And here’s one from the message yesterday entitled “Jesus is the Truth”…

“The religious leaders and Pharisees hated Jesus, but not because they caught him in a lie.  They hated him because he embodied the Truth.”

And here’s one for fun from several months ago…

“If you sit on the fence for too long, both cheeks get sore.”

We have so many hard-working partners in ministry at Jenison Christian Church that it is hard to single out just a few of them, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Have you thanked Rodd and Jasmine Lowell lately?  They volunteer so much time with our worship ministry that I often jokingly refer to them as “unpaid staff.”  They are here for about two hours once a week in the evening to lead our worship team practice.  They are here about fifty Sundays a year to lead worship for two services.  They are often here early on Sunday morning before many of the rest of us are even awake, preparing to lead our church family in worship.

All of that volunteer time doesn’t include the behind-the-scenes work that Rodd and Jas do in picking out songs and planning all of our worship services.  And it doesn’t include time spent listening to new music to introduce to us; reading articles and books on worship; attending training sessions and seminars, and more.

Sometimes I believe that many people think that leading worship just means that you pick a couple of cools songs or choose a music style that suits the most people in our gathering on Sunday morning.  But it’s so much more than that.

Worship ministry is about engaging people in a sacred moment of community; a moment where the entire sum of our beings joins together to worship God; a moment where all of our voices and our minds and our ears and our hearts and our bodies are joined together and pointing in the same direction – toward the Lord God Almighty.

Rodd and Jas understand this and are committed to leading our church gatherings on Sunday into the presence and the glory of God.  They do a tremendous job of it, and we are so fortunate to have them in our church family.  Please take the time this month to express your thanks to them!

Thank you, Jenison family, for the privilege of serving with you.  My family and I are so blessed to be able to work with you.  We love you!

This morning I am thinking back to our first SummerSalt event last night. SummerSalt is our summer event schedule for families, and last night featured Ultimate Air Inflatables. The threat of rain forced us to a change of location from the park down the street into our church building. You wouldn’t believe we could get four of those giant inflatable units, including the 80-foot long obstacle course, into our building, but we made it happen!

And “we” is the operative term. Awesome events like this don’t happen without “Ultimate Volunteers.” Some of them are behind the scenes. You never knew it, but Aaron North, Mitch and Grant Howard, and Reagan and Miles Hoezee were at the church hours before the event, moving hundreds of chairs out of the way to make room for giant air-filled fun. Some of those guys stayed late to help set things up again also, some 6 hours later.

And then we had more than 20 volunteers on hand during the event keeping kids safe, cheering them on, welcoming the unchurched and other first-time guests, and spending time relating to them. WOW! Thanks for all your time and energy devoted to building the Kingdom of God. I appreciate you! (Pictures to come soon….)

Summertime is here, school is finishing up, kids are ready to be home, and we are – busier than any other time during the year? Yes, it sometimes feels like that, doesn’t it?  We’ve got graduation open houses, baseball and softball games and practices, swimming lessons, driver’s education classes, family vacations, weekend jaunts to the cottage, picnics and side trips galore.

Our Christian Education team at Jenison Christian Church recognizes that your summer is a busy time.  We’ve responded by intentionally lowering the amount of church programming throughout the summer weeks – and at the same time, trying to raise the level of quality for what we do offer.   Beginning last summer, one way in which we’ve tried to do that is the creation of SummerSalt.

SummerSalt is designed to be an introduction to Jenison Christian Church through a fun activity for your whole family.  It is specifically intended to give you an opportunity to invite your friends, neighbors, and co-workers to a church activity that is “safe”. There won’t be any high pressure sales pitch given to the guests that you bring – just a high quality, fun, safe activity for everyone.  We WILL take a few minutes to explain who we are, and what some of the opportunities at Jenison are for your guests and their families.

We’ll let your guests know that we provide quality children’s programming in Sunday morning PromiseLand, fifty-two weeks a year.  It’s like having Vacation Bible School every Sunday!  We’ll let them know about our Wednesday night children’s activities and our youth group opportunities.  We’ll let them know about our small groups options.  We’ll let them know that we love them and we care about them, and that our purpose to help them to “become passionate followers of Jesus Christ.”

That is, after all, the vision of Jenison Christian Church!  It is a joy to be on this journey with you.  Thanks for coming along!