FCC's Community Garden: Year End Report

Not exactly your Community Gardeners--but close enough!

The End of Year 2


Expert gardeners and landscapers say that it takes about 5 years for a garden to have that "wow!" effect on people who casually pass by. We haven't achieved 'wow' yet, but as we finish our 2nd year of community gardening we saw some beginning signs of it--and we have great hopes that by the end of next year (our 3rd year) we'll start hearing a few "Well, not too bad" assessments.

Like the Beverly Hillbillies above, some of the gardeners had a lot to learn about navigating through an entirely new culture. For example, they found out that Japanese beetles are not really insects but ugly assassins with superhuman powers that only laugh when even the most prodigious quantities of "organic" ivory soap and chewing tobacco are sprayed on them.

Yes, friends, while the gardeners remained true to their noble organic principles, they also failed to produce a single edible squash. On a positive note, some of the beetles developed a yen for Red Man Chewing Tobacco and experienced acute nicotine withdrawal when we stopped spraying them with it.

Not all was lost, however. One great learning was that spinach and lettuce can be grown very late in the season, as can snow peas. We hope that you enjoyed the bountiful greens--thanks to Kari Keever--that were provided after services this fall. Your gardeners also grew impressive numbers of tomatoes, potatoes, onions, peppers, the dreaded okra, and yard long (inedible) cucumbers. These vegetable delights where framed by Jennifer Hudspeth's wonderful zinnia, coxcomb, and sunflower beds.

Final Harvest

A bale of Hyacinth beans

One notable garden victory was the beautiful and splendid hedge of hyacinth beans that graced the wire fence surrounding the garden. This marvellous vining plant produced a grand pallet of various shades of green all summer long and then, quite suddenly one July morning, became profusely decorated with three inch bean pods of an astonishing purple hue.

Interestingly, the Hyacinth bean is a plant from Southeast Asia--called dai van in Vietnamese--that is highly regarded as a soup and salad ingredient. We tested a few early in August--and then gorged ourselves because they are so delicious. The photo above is of a bale of the remaining hyacinth vines, replete with bean pods. We have made this 'final harvest' available to anyone who would like to gather beans for replanting at home this spring. Just visit the garden and pluck the pods off the bale. It will remain there until about Christmas and then will be composted.

Plans for Next Year

In January of this year (2010) the Church Board approved an expansion of the garden that, due to time and chance, was delayed until this fall. Yet, expand we will. This fall, trees were removed to open an area to the sunshine, post holes were dug, and materials and equipment donated by Hanby Lumber and Worely's Equipment rental were acquired to allow us to approximately double the amount of space available for production. Over the winter a fence will go up and raised beds will be put in place. We will probably plant a few more fruit trees as well.

This new space will be a 'Children's Garden' and, like all gardens, will take about 4 or 5 years to look like much. There is no expectation that the children will actually work in the garden~~although it would be wonderful if they did~~but we want to give them a place to pick flowers for their mothers, to decorate the church, and to gather vegetables for Loaves and Fishes if they are so inclined.

The garden's Godfather, Bill Hudspeth, will trench in a waterline sometime this winter so that the garden can have a separate water meter. It is important to the gardeners that the garden be at least 'budget neutral' and have no negative impact on our church's finances. Bill's dirt work will make this possible~~for which the gardeners heartily thank him! We may also put in a more sophisticated irrigation system to replace our current drip system.

Things We Need

If anyone can donate old 1 inch lumber that can be recycled into fence pickets, that would be a good thing. We will also appreciate donations of rail road ties, and of 2x8 inch treated or cedar boards suitable for raised bed construction.

We will also be grateful for the donation of fruit trees. Perhaps you would like to donate a tree in memory of a loved one?

Finally, we would LOVE to have more gardeners. If you would like to reserve a spot in the garden for the 2011 growing year~~and have 3 or 4 hours a week during the growing season to spend minding it~~we will be EXCITED to have you participate. Please let us know and we'll reserve you a spot.

Thank You!

Your Community Gardeners are mindful of the gift of land and resources that the Board, Elders, and Members of the First Christian Church have given them. Please know that we are grateful and promise to be good stewards of the gift that you have given us. Thank you, so much.

Christmas Play: "A Mouse's Tale"

Good News Of Great Joy Sermon

Sermon by Judy Turner
Luke 2:8-15

WE ALL WANT JOY
I’m going to start with a statement that I don’t think anybody will disagree with: we all want to be happy. We all want that inner state of well-being, with accompanying feelings of pleasure and delight, good fortune, blessing. Particularly at this time of the year, we want to be happy. If you asked people what their ultimate goal in life is, they might say, “To be happy.”

GOD IS JOY AND WANTS US TO BE JOYFUL
But I believe that even more than happiness, we want joy. Joy is that inner sense of well-being and gladness that is not dependent on what’s going on around us, or on our circumstances, but is the gift of God that nobody can take away from us and nothing can diminish. The source of joy is God. We were created in the image of God, to share Godness. God is joy, and wants his human children to share his great gladness. In fact, He commands it. Just start looking through the Bible for joy, and you see in both the Old and New Testaments an astonishing number of references to delight, joy, bliss, exultation, merry-making and rejoicing. So, joy is a characteristic of the life of a child of God, flowing from God into us who are made in His image. In Galatians 5, joy is included as part of the fruit of the Spirit- something that should grow out of our life, just as clearly as apples grow on the apple tree.

CULTIVATING JOY
But those apples require some cultivation. One of the real estate ads that caught my eye describing the property that became the Christview Ministries Center where John and I have the privilege of living, was “variety of fruit trees”. Oh, I had visions of our own cherries and pears and apples we could pick right off the tree. What were those little hard, green wormy things that appeared on the tree that first fall? I talked with a man who has an apple orchard. He told me what you have to do to cultivate apples: all the pruning and spraying and fertilizing. My eyes started glazing over as I realized I was not going to do the work to help the tree produce the apples. I would just buy them- locally if at all possible!

WHAT LUKE’S STORY OF THE ANGELS AND SHEPHERDS TELLS US ABOUT JOY
So, the Bible indicates that joy is a gift, part of God’s own nature shared with us, what grows in us as we continually make choices to cooperate with God. Let’s explore what the story in Luke 2 of the angels and the shepherds tells us about joy as God’s gift and what we do to cultivate it.
Luke 2:8-9
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.

JOY IS BEING CAUGHT UP IN THE BIGNESS OF WHAT GOD IS DOING
One of the things I love about this story is that it is about ordinary people going about their daily lives, when suddenly they are caught up in something huge! The best thing I’ve seen sent over the internet in a long time is a video of what happened Saturday Oct. 30 at the Center City Shopping Mall in Philadelphia. The video starts with shoppers in Macy’s, looking at the clothes on the racks, handling the merchandise, making their purchases. They are completely unaware that something big and unexpected is about to happen. 650 singers from the Philadelphia Opera Co. and numerous choirs of the city are stationing themselves at various places in the store and on the balconies at the center of the mall. Then at noon, there is the sound of an organ, and all the singers burst into singing the Hallelujah Chorus. The video shows people looking up, startled, stopping what they’re doing, looking around, puzzled looks turning to smiles of amazement. Some shoppers start joining in the song, whether they know the words are not, some people pull out their cell phones to capture the moment in pictures, children are lifted to the shoulders of their parents to get a better view of what is going on. When the final “Hallelujah” sounds, people burst into applause that lasts very long time. People just stand there, like nobody wants it to be over. The video pans to one of the organizers on the balcony holding up a sign, “You’ve just experienced a Random Act of Culture”. I thought, “No, it’s more than that. It’s more like, “You’ve just been caught up in a moment of holy joy.”
The spiritual writer Stephen Mitchell once described a holy joy as “so large that it is no longer inside of you, but you are inside of it.” That’s the feeling we get with the shepherds in the fields, suddenly caught up in this huge joy. The curtain that usually separates the seen material world from the unseen spiritual realm was lifted. And mortals were able to see and hear the angels rejoicing all around them. It was radiant, terrible in the most beautiful way, a Huge Holy joy they were inside of. That was the gift part of the joy. The Greek word for the good news of great joy the angel announced is “chara” (Khar-ah’) which comes from the Greek word “charis”, grace. Just out of His loving goodness and the overflowing muchness of His being, God gives humans the opportunity to share in His joy, not because we deserve it, but because that’s the way God is.
THE CHOICES WE MAKE TO RECEIVE JOY
But the shepherds have to make some choices to be part of God’s joy. By their choices they receive and cultivate this great gift of God’s own joy.
Luke 2: 9b-10 And they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

DON’T GIVE IN TO THE JOY-BLOCKERS. ASK GOD TO BE IN CONTROL.
The angel tells them, “Don’t be afraid.” Of course, they feel afraid, terrified, like they want to run and hide. But the choice is not to let feelings of fear control them. Let God be in control. There are some joy-blockers. Fear and anxiety are big joy-blockers. If we want to experience more joy in our lives, I suggest we adopt a zero tolerance policy toward the joy-blockers in our lives. Maybe you can’t help feelings of anxiety. But are they going to limit your life, control what you do and don’t do, or are you going to choose not to give in to fear, but instead surrender to God? “God, I’m feeling afraid, but I don’t want to be controlled by fear. I surrender my fear to you and ask for deeper trust in you.” We don’t like to admit how totally dependent we are on God for everything. We’d sometimes rather hang on to our anxiety and our small, scared lives, and our misery than give up control and ask God for the trust we need. What do you need to live in the big Joy of the Lord? Ask for it. If you don’t have much joy in your life, don’t settle for such a weak, shriveled life. Ask for the joy of the Lord, which the scripture says, is our strength.

SAY “YES” TO GOD’S INVITATION AND SEE FOR YOURSELF
Then, the angels invite the shepherds to go see for themselves.
11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
They angels give directions (perhaps not as detailed as Mapquest, but more accurate) by pointing the shepherds to Bethlehem and they will know they have found the right baby when they see him wrapped in cloths and lying in a feeding trough for animals. This is the One, the baby who is God with us, Christ the Lord.
Now, at this point, the shepherds have a choice. It’s a kind of a risky, silly thing to do to go wandering around Bethlehem looking for this baby. They could convince each other this was just a wild dream, just go back to sleep and promise each other they would never say a word about this to anybody. After all, people might question their sanity if they followed up on this. But they chose to risk it, to see for themselves.
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

GOD IS INVITING EACH OF US TO JOY
God is always inviting each of us to see for ourselves, to experience in our own lives who He is and what He is doing. How is God inviting you this morning? Maybe you’re not even sure God is real. Are you willing to find out? Are you willing to start talking to God and holding out the possibility that God might communicate with you, start reading the Bible, start hanging out regularly with Christians?
Maybe you know God is real, but He is remote. He hasn’t come close and personal. You don’t see Him doing anything in your world. Are you willing to see for yourself? Are you simply willing to pray each morning, “God, open my eyes, I want to see what you’re doing all around me.”
But even if you see God at work around you, you don’t fully experience the joy until you ask to be part of what God is doing. “God, I don’t want to just be a spectator. I want to be a player on your team and join you on the field. I want to serve you every day.” Maybe there is some particular step God has been inviting you to take: from forgiving someone to taking a new direction in your life. Whatever the invitation, saying “yes” to God brings joy. Because God’s desire for you is also your deepest joy.

THE FULFILLMENT OF OUR LITTLE LIVES IN GOD’S GREAT WORK
The stories Luke tells us in Chapters 1 and 2 are about ordinary people caught up inside this big cosmic thing God is doing. But they have the choice whether they will say “yes” and take part in God’s redemption of the world. When they say “yes”, not only are they inside God’s Great Cosmic Joy, but their little individual lives are fulfilled as well. Both the Big Story of the salvation of the world, and the smaller human stories of Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and a bunch of shepherds matter to God. Zechariah and Elizabeth, the old, childless couple who have prayed for years, now miraculously have a child. Mary, a young person, really wanting her life to count, now finds a purpose for her life far beyond anything she could imagine. Shepherds, nobodies, stuck on the hillside with sheep night after night, longing for significance, something more, now become part of the Adventure of the Ages.
It just may be that the fulfillment of your heart’s truest desires and your deepest longings for joy are just beyond that step of saying “yes” to God. Are you willing to see for yourself?

Special Outreach Christmas Service

“SERVICE OF THE LONGEST NIGHT”

First Christian Church is sponsoring a worship service on Tuesday evening, Dec. 21, 7:00-8:00 PM for people in our community who are struggling and hurting and not having a "merry" Christmas. For some, the memories of beloved family members who have died brings pain at this time of year. For others the sadness of divorce or broken relationships brings anguish to this season. For many, the anxious insecurity of unemployment or the menacing cloud of poor health darken this Christmas.
For those who have empty places in their hearts and homes, we are offering a worship service on the longest, darkest night of the year, Dec. 21st. This informal Christmas worship service will be an opportunity to acknowledge sadness, grief, struggle, and to know that you are not alone.
No need to dress up, just come as you are and receive the strengthening words of hope from Scripture and from the community of faith. We will be reminded of the Christ child who comes into our dark and troubled world to bring light and hope.

If you have questions, contact Judy Turner, 479-253-5865

First Sunday of Advent at First Christian Church

Children talk about the meaning of the Chrismons, Christian symbols

Children show the Chrismons they have made

Everyone comes forward to put a Chrismon on the tree

Children decorate the tree with the remaining Chrismons

What Are We Expecting from God?

John Turner's sermon from the First Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2010

Lamentations 3:21-33

These are dark times. They must be. Everyone keeps saying so. But then, there have been many such times in history, and some much worse. Nevertheless, I understand the tendency to bemoan the present times. Judy recently called to my attention an article that claimed the present generation is not interested in anything the church has been doing in the past: Sunday school, worship services, fellowship activities, mission projects, and the like. They are so pressured and busy that they don’t have time for all that. They are only interested in experiences and relationships, especially the kinds of things that can be conveyed on Face Book, Twitter, cell phone texting, and the like. Any content of the faith must be reduced to sound bites. And those sound bites need to be completely non-authoritarian, non-judgmental, non-demanding, never claiming that there is such a thing as absolute truth or absolute morality. How does one convey the content of our faith in a cultural setting like that? Yes, I can get down about that.

Okay, so Jesus and the apostles did not have it easy either. Their culture was not exactly predisposed to accept that there was only one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one faith, one hope, one baptism, one church. But God gave the handful of the first Christians powerful ways to capture people’s attention, to open people’s minds, and to demonstrate alternative ways of living. The first century church grew in leaps and bounds by counter-programing in a dark, hostile environment. God did it. God can do it again.

I am not here to preach a reactionary sermon about how awful our culture is. I am not here to curse the darkness. In the spirit of the Advent season, I am here to light a metaphorical candle.

The time period surrounding Jesus’ birth was a very dark time in the history of Israel. Rome had ruled for nearly sixty years. By the time of Jesus’ birth, Herod the Great, half Idumean (translate hated Edomite), had been for over thirty years the tyrannical, cruel, insanely paranoid, but still shrewd and effective, puppet king, appointed by Rome to govern unruly Israel. To find a time period much darker than that, more lacking in hope, we might go back more than six, nearly seven, centuries to the time when the Babylonians crushed Jerusalem, destroyed its temple, and either killed or carried off into exile the citizens who failed to escape.

It was in that previous dark period that the book of Lamentations was written. The bulk of the book is indeed filled with bitter lament, but right at the structural center of this book of gloom, are these words of hope:

Lamentations 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him (waiting, even waiting quietly does not mean being passive; it means not turning away from the Lord and the Lord’s ways; it means not panicking and grasping after straws). 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 28 Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; 29 let him put his mouth in the dust—there may yet be hope; 30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults. 31 For the Lord will not cast off forever, 32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; 33 for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

The Lamentations passage draws its picture of God from the past, from a passage originating shortly after the exodus nearly a millennium before the exile. This too was a dark time. God through Moses had led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to the foot of Mount Sinai. God had called Israel to be a royal priesthood and a holy nation, meaning that they were to represent God’s character to the nations. In exchange, the Israelites had promised to obey God’s covenant laws, including the Ten Commandments. No sooner had Moses gone up the mountain to spend forty days receiving the stone tablets and other laws from god, than Israel at the foot of the mountain made and worshiped a golden calf, with fertility cult practices included. God and Moses were both very angry with the Israelites, but God led Moses to intercede for them, and Moses agreed to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land if God would promise to go with them. Moses also asked God to show him his glory. God agreed to reveal as much of his glory as Moses could stand.

The Exodus passage describes the qualities that God revealed when he hid Moses in the cleft of a rock on Mount Sinai, covered him there with his hand because Moses could not have stood a face-to-face viewing of God’s holiness, and the Lord passed before Moses, proclaiming the meaning of his name, the heart of his identity: “Yahweh, Yahweh (which translates, The Lord, the Lord, or I Am That I Am, I Am That I Am,), a God merciful and gracious (or compassionate), slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness….” Do you hear these words from Exodus echoing in Lamentations? Steadfast love, mercy, faithfulness, compassion… this is who God is; this is what God's name, the Lord, Yahweh, is to convey to us. God may be absolutely, perfectly holy, unable to put up with wrong, and absolutely Sovereign, sufficiently powerful to do whatever he wants, but he will always exercise his holy, sovereign freedom in consistency with his steadfast love, faithfulness, mercy, grace, and compassion.

In the name and character of this God is hope even for the darkest time. Lamentations, written in bitterly dark times, amongst the slain corpses of Jerusalem and the ruins of its temple, finds one brightly shining ray of hope. The one hope, even in dark times, is that the character of God has not changed, that the light of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, mercy, grace, and compassion, is steady, reliable, and available. Please hear: this is the one hope. There is no other.

If we are to avail ourselves of the one hope, then we must set our hearts and minds on that hope and no other. What must we do to claim this one hope? We must make sure that our expectations in life, the solutions we pursue in life, are God-given, God-shaped, and God-sized.

The Hope That Is God-Given The hope of which I speak is a firm expectation based on revealed truth that has been proven by the tests of many centuries. The revealed truth in which we hope runs from Genesis through Revelation and is centered in Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, Immanuel, God with us in human flesh.

The name Jesus, Joshua, Yeshua, Yehoshua, However you want to say it, says this, “The Lord saves,” or, “The Lord delivers.” Jesus is the one who puts God’s holiness, steadfast love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, and compassion most tangibly before us. This God appears throughout the Bible, but when we want to bring our vision of God into the sharpest possible focus, we look to Jesus. Specifically, we look toward what Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John were divinely inspired to tell us about Jesus.

Mark, writing first, tells us that Jesus is the Royal Son of God who came to demonstrate God’s reigning love and power, that he is the Suffering Servant who came to give his life as a ransom for our sins, and that he is the Divine Son of Man who will prevail in the end.

Matthew adds that Jesus is the fulfillment of the entirety of the Old Testament and that he is the ultimate teacher who clarifies for us God’s perfect will for all his children, Jews and Gentiles alike. Jesus instructs, purifies, and empowers his followers so that they can carry his message to the whole world, baptizing new believers into Jesus and teaching them to obey his commandments.

Luke adds that Jesus is a new Adam founding a new creation, lifting up the lowly and bringing down those who think they are really something, transforming and empowering his followers with the Holy Spirit so that they can live in ways that overturn how the world runs and instead make it run by God’s redeeming love.

John adds that Jesus is the Divine Word made flesh, tabernacling amongst us, at last going away so that he can send his Spirit to live in us, enabling us to do the kinds of things he did, and greater things yet. John especially wants us to understand that Jesus is fully human, subject to all the limitations of a human body (exhaustion, hunger, thirst, tears, pain, getting dirty), willing to assume the humble duties of practically caring for the physical needs of his fellow human beings, and that, at the same time, Jesus is fully divine, able to convey to all who believe in him the power to become freed, delivered, reborn children of God.

Put the four Gospels together and you get a fully orbed picture of the Creator of the universe and of his saving love. In Jesus, God has fully revealed himself. Our hope is in the God so revealed. Our hope is God-given.

The Hope That Is God-Shaped If God is fully holy and fully loving, then he must be moving his creation toward a perfection that is characterized by God’s kind of love, a self-giving, redeeming, reconciling love, a love focused on new life. God wants to reshape us in his image. If we want to find hope in a dark world, then we must be opening ourselves as fully as possible to God’s reshaping work in our lives. We must let his reshaping work set our goals in life and direct our energies and resources in life. Yes, we will always in this life fall short, but what counts is the divine source, direction, and motivation of our progress, bringing us degree by degree along to the next stage in our development. A hope that is not God-shaped is fool’s gold. It will disappoint us in the end. If our hope is focused on money, fame, power, sex or romance, and the like, we will end up disappointed, ultimately miserable. But if our goal is to love more and more in accord with the truth of Jesus, and we are letting the Holy Spirit moves us in that direction, our hope will not disappoint us. A God-shaped hope may go through some dark valleys, but never disappoints in the end.

The Hope That Is God-Sized There is a bit of a mystery in how our hope can be God-sized. If our hopes are grandiose, God may force us to refocus on smaller size hopes until we master those. If our hopes are so small as not to match God’s purposes for our lives, then God may force us far beyond our comfort zones into bigger fields of endeavor. How does one know what size our hopes should be in order to be God-sized? The key is that if our hope is focused on what we can do by our own strength and resources, then our hope is the wrong size, either too big or too small. God-sized hopes do not leave us in control, but call us beyond ourselves to be agents of God. In the end, what we have to say is that a God-sized hope, whether big or little, is one that only God can do. That is the kind of hope that God wants to accomplish through us. If we don’t open ourselves to something that only God can do, we may never see beyond the darkness.

What are we expecting from God? Is it God-given, revealed in the Bible and especially through Jesus Christ? Is it God-shaped, aimed at God’s purposes for his creation and for our lives? Is it God-sized, something that only God can do? If so, we will not be disappointed in the end.

The Table of the Cross-Shaped Life

John Turner's sermon from Thanksgiving Sunday, November 21, 2010

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Old Corinth had been destroyed, but because Rome needed a city in this strategic transportation and commerce hub, they had sent freed slaves to found a new city. There were opportunities for rapid advancement, and several generations into the development of the new city, self-made stature was the great emphasis of Corinthian culture. Social life was designed to display economic and social advancement. Prosperous homes typically had dining rooms that could serve 9 to 12 people and a courtyard that could handle another 30 to 60. For large banquets, those of highest status were invited to the dining room. Others had to make do in the courtyard. The quality and quantity of food and wine was much greater in the dining room than in the courtyard. Some gorged and got drunk in the dining room while others observing from the courtyard had less or even nothing. There are a number of complaints about this practice in the Greco-Roman literature of the time.

The practices and the attitudes of the culture crept over into the church. Corinthian house church worship meetings tended to resemble secular banquets, complete with status distinctions and unequal provisioning of the guests; this was true even of the Lord’s Supper. Paul saw that this was completely contrary to Jesus’ purposes for his world, for his church, and for this table.

The Bible does not say how often the early church celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Where fellowship meals were a daily affair, as may have been the case in Jerusalem, some scholars believe that they opened each meal with the bread representing Jesus’ body and closed it with the cup representing his blood. Probably in Corinth and most mission churches, the Lord’s Supper was observe d at least on the evening of the first day of each week. However often it was celebrated, and by whatever means, Paul wanted to talk about the right attitude in which to celebrate it.

1. Paul understood that this meal is a Thanksgiving meal, a table of gratitude for the blessings that are ours in Christ. Our high church Christian friends have long called this meal the eucharist, which is simply a form of the Greek word eucharistia meaning thanksgiving. Right at the center of that word is the Greek word charis, meaning grace or unearned gift. This is the table where we receive and make grateful response to the unearned gift that is ours through Jesus Christ, the gift of his incarnation, his life and ministry, his death and resurrection, his ascension, his coming again, and his eternal new creation; AND the gift to us of forgiveness, of being clothed in his righteousness, of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, of being called and gifted as children and servants of God, of being assured that we are co-heirs with Christ of the new heaven and new earth. We have abundant reasons to give thanks at this table.

2. Paul asserted that this is a meal of proclamation. He said that, whenever we come to this table, we are proclaiming a message about the significance of Jesus’ death, and, by implication, the subsequent resurrection, ascension, and coming again. That fits with Paul’s overall message in the entire First Letter to the Corinthians where, focusing on Christ’s self-giving love on the cross, Paul then draws out theological, moral, spiritual, social, and missional implications for the church. Because our salvation is rooted in an incredible act of costly grace displayed by God the Father through God the Son, every part of our lives is to show our deep appreciation of this fact. On the basis of his message of the cross, Paul says to us, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” In other words, let everything in your life be a proclamation of the amazing grace we know through Jesus Christ. That proclamation is in focus at this table.

3. At the heart of Paul’s thinking was that the meal offered at this table defines a covenant community of those whose lives have been and continue to be primarily shaped by the gracious, saving, self-giving love of Jesus Christ. When we were baptized, we were symbolically and sacramentally dying with Christ to the power of sin to dominate our lives and coming alive with Christ to the power of the Holy Spirit to renew our lives in the image of God. That was our start on the Christian life, but that business of dying to sin and coming alive to God needs regular maintenance. Here at the table we are invited to check up on whether we are letting any wrong attitudes and practices, things not consistent with our baptism into Christ, creep into our hearts and minds. If we find things that don’t fit with being shaped by the cross of Christ, we repent, we get our signals straight and head in a new and better direction. We are in covenant with all who have been baptized into Christ, with all who share this supper with us, a covenant that together we are on a journey of renewal in self-giving love through our relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Since this table defines a covenant community, we need to recognize that our intentionally choosing to treat each other as beloved fellow pilgrims toward the cross-shaped, Christ-like life is a key test of whether we are ourselves on the path of renewal for which this table provides the spiritual food.

4. In writing to the Corinthian Christians, Paul was teaching them that status distinctions were to be left at the foot of the cross, that each believer’s significance in the church was to be measured by their moving toward Christ-like character and by their mutual loving service to one another. Nowhere should this be more evident than in their covenant meal which proclaimed the self-giving love of Jesus Christ on the cross as the foundation of their community life.

Paul’s message is not about the obligation of the prosperous to be tolerant and generous to the poor. The message is that the actions of the church should indicate that all believers were together on an adventure in cross-shaped living, that they were to help one another on that journey. The message is about mutuality, learning from one another, helping one another. Paul himself knew that he had a ways to go on his own journey. Paul later wrote to the Philippians about his goal of becoming like Jesus in his self-giving, loving death, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” And he thanked the Philippians for the ways they helped him on his journey and in his calling. We are a covenant community of people on the journey toward the cross-shaped life. Not one of us is yet perfected. Every one of us is in need of the help of our faithful friends. We must learn to treat one another as beloved fellow pilgrims and covenant partners. We help one another with the understanding that one day, indeed at any moment, any help we offer will be returned many times over.

But the Corinthian Christians were unthinkingly carrying worldly status into their Christian gatherings. Paul said, “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat.” Why not? They had the right elements. They said the right words. It was not the Lord’s Supper because it was not advancing the cause for which the Lord died. It was not the Lord’s Supper; it was a meal upholding the cultural traditions and social rankings within their community rather than supporting the redeeming mission of their Lord.

5. Paul asserted that it is dangerous to partake of this meal without submitting to its life-changing force. Paul tells the Corinthians, “When you come together, it is not for the better but for the worse.” And again, “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died.” That is pretty strong language. How are we to understand it?

Paul’s warning does not mean that you have to hold to the right sacramental theory, whether transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or real presence. Paul taught that we really are participating in Christ’s body and blood through our participation in this meal, but there is no evidence that he insisted on any one theory about how that worked.

Paul’s warning does not mean that, if you are not sufficiently gloomy about the suffering Jesus did for you, if you are not acting like you are mourning at Jesus’ funeral, you will be punished. The Paul who said, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, Rejoice!” would hardly commend gloominess!

Paul’s warning does not mean that, if you fail to make yourself worthy before coming to the table, then you may be punished for your presumption. Paul did not believe that even one of us is worthy or that we can make ourselves so. Paul did not say, “You have to be worthy to take the Supper.” Paul did say, in effect, “You have to receive it in a worthy manner.” That is very different. Receiving it in a worthy manner is precisely receiving it with full awareness that we are not worthy, that it is indeed amazing grace at the heart of what is represented at this table.

Paul’s warning did not say that everyone who receives it unworthily will become ill and die. He did not say that those who receive it worthily will never become ill or die. Paul himself had some persistent affliction which was not removed through his earnest prayers, and he certainly expected that, if Jesus did not return sooner, he would one day die.

Paul’s warning does, however, mean that there is a built-in divine judgment when we fail to receive the benefits God offers us, and that sometimes we will experience, in the area of our physical health, the consequences of our failure to line our lives up with Jesus. If we think that our lives are all about us, our desires, our feelings, our agendas, then we will suffer the consequences of our improper, out-of-balance living, sometimes in our health. If we are hypocrites when we come to this table, not coming for the right reasons of deepening our cross-shaped, Christ-like living, then our coming will place an extra burden on our lives; double-mindedness is a stress factor that ultimately wears us down. If we will not allow Jesus to deepen our spiritual roots, then our lives will not unfold as they were designed to unfold. It is only by following Jesus that we will eventually become all that we were created to be. Basically, I believe that Paul meant, “If your life is not being a shaped by the self-giving love of the cross, then you are missing the vital benefit of this meal. You will miss the transforming, vitalizing power of the gospel. Your life will be out of balance, and you will suffer in every area of your life. In that case, this meal will be of no benefit to you and may actually deepen your problems, including physical problems.”

The good news—and this is very important--is that every one of us can partake worthily:

1. coming with thanksgiving for the grace we know through our Lord Jesus Christ

2. proclaiming the death, resurrection and ultimate victory of Jesus Christ and seeking to live the cross-shaped life,

3. knowing that we are part of a covenant community of pilgrims journeying together toward our Christ-like destiny,

4. understanding that, with the support of our faithful friends, we can gradually learn to recognize and repent of any values and practices that are not compatible with Jesus’ saving, transforming purposes,

5. approaching this table with hearts sincerely and humbly open to what Christ would do this day to move us forward on our journey.

This church is a fellowship of this table, a covenant community of faith in Jesus Christ, being transformed from one degree of glory to another into his likeness. If that sounds like a good deal to you, receive it, share it, show it.

The Holy Spirit Lives at FCC Berryvlle

by Ken Hale

Have you ever thought how great it would be to have a vibrant youth group at our church?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have our church building look as active as a beehive on Wednesday nights?

Have you ever marveled at the work that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can do when presented by two dynamic youth leaders?

If you said yes to any of the above questions you need to step inside our church building on Wednesday nights and see for yourself what the Holy Spirit can do.

We have a vibrant youth group (with many adults attending).

We have a church building that is alive and inviting.

We have two dynamic leaders. Scott and Amanda Frame present the Gospel each week and make it come to life for those in attendance.

We started with four or five youth some two years ago and now have a regular Wednesday night attendance of 60+ persons. It is awesome to see the spiritual growth that the youth exhibit. It is awesome to see how hungry everyone is for the presence of the Holy Spirit in the worship. Lives are being saved for the kingdom of Jesus Christ each week. Lives are being changed forever by the biblical truths being taught.

If you too are anxious for another opportunity to worship through the week come see what’s happening on Wednesday nights at First Christian Church Berryville.

Going Forward with Faith & Love

The Apostle James by Rembrandt

In Sunday School Loretta Tanner led us through a discussion about the Apostle James’ letter that encourages people to behave in loving and temperate ways toward one another. In it, James also talks about the importance of working in productively Christian ways.


Apparently, James’ letters have caused some controversy. Martin Luther, a hero of the Reformation, referred to it as a “straw epistle’ because it did not emphasize the primacy of faith over work. In some respects, Luther may have been right: work is only work unless it is imbued with faith and performed for good reasons.


That was our consensus at Sunday School. Faith is sometimes hard but always primary, and work is just work unless it is done because of our faith in God, and in fulfillment of the grand command to love Him, and others.


James’ letter seems terrifically timely just now. We’ve completed a congregational meeting agreeing to the installation of a new Church Board, recruited Ministry Team Leaders, and will create a 2011 budget that is a practical expression of our faith in the future. These are the actions of people of faith and works. However difficult the circumstances of the world surrounding First Christian Church may be, that future seems bright to us, and we can feel confident that people will ‘know we are Christians by our love.”


Thus, this is a good time to thank our Board of Directors, our Elders and Deacons, our Ministry Team Leaders, and each and all of our Members for your faithfulness and hard work in making our church a Community of Hope. Thank you for your faithfulness, and for your very hard work.