Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (3.20.14)

I hope you're having a great week and enjoying this first day of Spring.  I can't remember ever being this ready for Spring!  Can you believe Easter is one month from today?  I hope you're inviting friends and preparing your heart.  Easter is a great time to invite others, and our Worship Experience is going to be awesome.  If you've got friends and family that are skeptics, new to faith, exploring God, or unsure about Jesus, it's the perfect opportunity to invite them as I'll be teaching about the basics of the Easter story and why it matters 2,000 years later.

This Sunday, we're continuing our series "How It All Went Down" as we talk about Jesus' Trial Before the Sanhedrin.  If you don't know what the Sanhedrin is, we'll make it all make sense on Sunday.  There are some great lessons for our own lives in these stories.

Thought for the Week
"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."  Matthew 6:33

I was telling Emily the other day that I can't remember a season of our lives like this.  Well, there's never really been one.  We're in the thick of preparing for Easter and working on building plans for a permanent home.  I'm reading about a book a week in preparation for another couple of weeks of school in May.  And we're chasing around the four baseball teams that our boys play on.  We talked about how we're having to say no to a lot right now.  My focus has been baseball, church and school.  That's about all I have time for these couple of months.  It will be over in May, and we'll breathe, but it's a crazy season.  I'll bet you've had or are having seasons like that.  Family life, work life, and something else all ramps up at the same time.  There are a couple of important things to note in a life cycle like that:

• It's okay to give yourself permission to say 'no' for a season.  That doesn't mean it's a forever 'no.'  There are times you have to choose.  Know that you can always come back and choose differently when that period of life is over.  And let people know that.  Tell them, "I can't know, but talk to me about it this summer or in a year.  I'll be in a different place then."
• Keep the main things the main things.  Where frustration happens in relationships is when people feel like we're short-changing what is vitally important to them.  For me, school comes last of those three.  While I'm going to school to help me grow as a leader (which is important to our ministry), I can take classes over again.  I'll never get watching my boys play baseball back and I'll never get the opportunity back of preaching a message that someone needs to hear or leading our church through this important season.
• Don't say 'no' to God.  It's what I need most, and what I constantly remind myself of.  In the madness, we all need time to stop and exhale so that we can breathe in God's Spirit.  We need a moment in the Bible.  We need a time of prayer.  We need to connect with our Creator.  We need to seek Him first, not last, so that God my be moving and working in all our baseball watching, soccer mom-ing, school reading, client meeting, softball practicing, dance recital-ing, Bible studying, LIFE Group-ing, Volunteering, and family obligation-ing.  

May we seek Him first, even in the busiest seasons.

In Christ,

Carter

Doing Life Well

A week ago, I went to a funeral/memorial service for one of the most kind men I knew, Holt Fleming.  Holt was the long time treasurer at First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville, and when I served on staff there from 2002-2005, Holt came every Thursday morning to sign checks for various ministries.  On Thursdays, I always looked forward to seeing Holt, and I never missed sticking my head in the office where he was signing away to say, "Hello," because Holt always made me feel good about my day.  Heck, he made me feel good about life.

At the service, I figured out I wasn't the only one.  He had made every pastor and everyone feel that way.  I came home, and told my wife it was the best funeral I'd been to in a long time.  His Sons-in-law spoke with reverence and honor about the man they lovingly called "Dad."  And I just thought:  "I hope I do life that well."

There are moments when things become clear.  Every one of us will have a funeral or memorial service.  Our children, friends, nephews, nieces and business associates will gather to say something about our lives.  At that moment, the daily moments that we take for granted will add up to something.  We will have lived a lifetime of kindness or something else entirely.  It's so hard to think about that in the grind of life.  I spend most of my time working and chasing around four boys.  We spend our conversations trying to figure out what we're having for dinner and what time we're eating dinner in order to get to the ball field or a meeting on time.  I spend time worrying about church stuff and how to lead our ministry to where God wants it to go.  I go to meetings and write reports.  And, yet, I don't want to be remembered for any of that.

No one wants their children to say, "You know, the best thing about Dad was that we always had our schedule nailed down so that we could eat dinner before going to baseball practice."  And no one wants to be remembered as someone "who could really lead a meeting" or "really write up a report."

I want to be remembered as a man who really loved Jesus.  A husband who honored his wife every day.  A father who nurtured and cared for his sons, and taught them how to be men of integrity.  I want to be adored by my future daughters-in-law because I have cherished them and my future grandchildren so dearly.  I want to be known as someone who was fun to work for and with.  And I want to be remembered as kind.

It would help, if we could think about the back end of things on the front end.  Much of what we spend our energy, time and emotions on won't matter.  But we also can't live all of our lives at once.  I knew Holt Fleming as kind because he was kind the first day I met him as a young associate pastor.  Then he was kind the next time and the next.  Then he was just as encouraging every time I saw him when I dropped by to visit, even after I was serving elsewhere.  One visit at a time.  One smile at a time.  One kind word at a time.  That's how you build a legacy and a life.  When our children eulogize us, what will be the total sum of the 'one at a time' investments we've made over a lifetime?  What will matter at that moment won't be whether we did work, meetings, or reports well.  What will matter then is if we did life well.  So do life well today.

Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (3.13.14)

Hey there Church of the Way!

I hope you're having a fantastic week and enjoying some of this spring-like weather.  It's almost here!  I'm so excited about what God is doing at Church of the Way.  Yesterday, we met with our builder to begin to dream about renovation plans.  It's starting to come together, and when it does I can't wait to share with you the exciting days ahead.

This Sunday, we're continuing the series "How It All Went Down" as we take a look at "The Garden & Arrest" of Jesus.  We'll be following up last week's message about the cup of grace Jesus offered us.  That wasn't the original cup on the menu.

Thought for the Week
"Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief."  Psalm 31:9

I've been thinking about grief a lot lately.  Grief is simply dealing with loss.  We think about the death of a loved one when we think of grief, and that is certainly the most final and traumatic loss, but there are all kinds of losses in life.  Loss of dreams, relationships, friendships, jobs, money, and on and on.  I felt weird for a few days and I realized I was dealing with grief.  It wasn't even over something bad.  Simply, a good friend is moving away, and I was grieving.  Things will...change.  Change is a part of loss.  And everything is always changing, so in turn, we're kind of always dealing with grief.  The key is to remember that God is with us in loss and disappointment.  God is present.  No matter the change or grief you're doing through, God is with you.  And, there are better days ahead.  We serve a God who has big plans for us.  If we can focus on what is ahead that we're gaining rather than what we're losing, we learn to handle change and loss better.  It isn't easy.  Jesus grieved.  We all grieve.  Give yourself space and time to grieve, but know that God is there, and you have a future.

In Christ,

Carter 

Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (3.6.14)

I hope you're having a fantastic week.  Sunday was such an awesome day as we kicked off the series "How It All Went Down."  I'm having a great time studying up for this series about the week the changed the world.  I believe if we'll listen to what God has to say to us in this story, we'll be changed as well.

This Sunday, we'll continue the series as I teach about "The Betrayal and Last Supper."  There are some rich lessons for us in these passages.  Also, don't forget to set your clocks forward one hour this Saturday for Daylight Savings Time.  If you sleep in after losing an hour, make plans to come to our 6 p.m. service!

Thought for the Week
"Even zeal is not good without knowledge, and the one who acts hastily sins."  Proverbs 19:2

Has your zeal ever trumped your knowledge?  My passion has been known to do that from time to time.  This verse caught my eye on the eve of the Spring sports season for my family.  We'll be spending a lot of nights and Saturdays at the ballpark cheering on your boys' baseball teams.  It's easy to let your zeal overcome your knowledge when the umpire makes a not-so-correct call.  Of course, this happens in relationships, at work, at the DMV, in traffic, at family reunions, in the airport, dealing with customer service, and just about every day.  Zeal is not a bad thing.  It's a very good thing.  The world so desperately needs people who are full of life and energy.  However, we are unwise when we don't package zeal with knowledge.  We are called to do our due diligence.  Acting quickly isn't always the right things.  Speaking quickly isn't always the wise thing.  Sometimes it is.  Sometimes we're able to have insight immediately and quick action is needed.  But, we're wise to check ourselves.  This passage reminds us to do the right thing and say the thing instead of the immediate thing.  Don't lose zeal.  Just couple it with knowledge.  Something to remember the next time you're ready to fire off an email, post a comment, say something you shouldn't say or act hastily without thinking it through.

Be blessed and be a blessing!

Carter