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Pastor Barry

Halloween or Bible Costumes?

Joel 2:23-32, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 and Luke 18:9-14

Well, if the weather forecast holds up, October 31 will be a rainy day. You might expect the Halloween costumes on all the Trick-or-Treaters to be more visible as the fun activities move indoors! Zombies? Dracula? Disney characters? Video game characters?

Regardless, it is THE one day of the year that costumes of all kinds of characters overwhelm shirts, jeans, skirts for the evening. And many congregations will join in on the fun in some way. Trunk or Treat out of the cars in church parking lots or host a “Fall Festival” themed party with less emphasis on the “scary!” Most churches accept the popular culture moment of Halloween but hesitate to engage some of the ideas that lie behind Halloween’s origins.

This Sunday’s texts will help us think a bit about that fine line between popular culture e.g. movies, TV, social media, entertainment and the like. We will hear about and see imaginatively the prophet Joel, the Tax Collector, the Pharisee, St Paul, and images of both doom and salvation. Our cast of Halloween characters in costume probably won’t look much like Bible characters, but we will see how some of the same Biblical themes of Evil, Fear, Death, Salvation are “played out” in scary characters in festive and light hearted ways e.g. Trick or Treat.

Dressing up as a prophet, Pharisee, Tax Collector, or St Paul for Halloween just doesn’t seem to work for most! Is it because the matters are too serious to be set into a fun, lighthearted occasion? If so, can the fun costumes and characters of the Fall season still give us “hints” about things of the Spirit?! Let’s see how that plays out as we hear the Word this Sunday in the season of Halloween!

Blessings even in this “scary” time!

Pastor Barry

Chaplain Rob

Changing the Way You Think

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. – Romans 12:2

This Scripture passage presents us with a choice. We can either pick up the behaviors and customs of this world, or we can let God transform us into our true selves.

Stated that way, it doesn’t seem like a hard choice. Who wouldn’t want to be transformed by God? And yet most of us find it extremely difficult to resist the influence of the world around us.

Almost without knowing it, we absorb ideas, attitudes, and habits that keep us stuck in our old, reactive ways.

Jesus says, “Don’t worry.” But we can’t sleep because of anxiety or worrying about the past.

Jesus says, “Love your neighbor.” But we’re concerned that the wrong sort of person has moved in next door or we find it hard to love some people.

Jesus says, “The truth will set you free.” But we can’t help thinking that little white lies can make everything easier and honesty with others is sometimes hard.

The key point Paul is making is that transformation begins with changing the way we think. Our thoughts generate our feelings, and our feelings generate our behaviors. If we want to live and act the way God wants us to, we must begin by thinking differently.

Ask Yourself
What are some of the behaviors and customs you have picked up from the world?

Do you agree that our thoughts generate our feelings? Have you ever seen this work in your life?

Ask God
Dear Jesus, I want to become my true self—the person you created me to be.

Give me discernment to recognize when I have picked up worldly thinking, and help me replace those thoughts with your thoughts.

My prayer is that each of us will find where we have “stinking thinking” and prayerfully offer that part of our lives to God so that we can be transformed today.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

Chaplain Rob

Letting Go of Your Past

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. 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

Are you living a life of ‘if only’s’?

If only I had made better decisions.
If only I had been brought up in a better family.
If only I had spent more time with the children.
If only you had said I’m sorry or I was wrong

Sometimes this ‘if only’ thinking is projected onto others:

If only you hadn’t been so stupid.
If only you had made more money.
If only you hadn’t failed to understand our child.

‘If only’ thinking takes all of a person’s energy and emotions and uselessly spends that energy on a destructive rehash of the past, through the dank marshes of what might have been.

This focus is so all-consuming that it leaves you without strength or motivation to resolve the past and move on to achieve your future. . . a future full of possibilities that God puts before you, that He wants you to take hold of.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. – Will Rogers

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

Pastor Barry

The Long Haul of Faith

Jeremiah 31:27-34, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 and Luke 18:1-8

When did you come to believe? Remember? Or have there been many times when you said, “I believe Lord (but) help Me in my unbelief!”

Our Timothy passage speaks of the influence from childhood of Timothy’s mother and grandmother. He was taught the Holy Scriptures (the OT in this context) early on. How about you? Who was there for you while growing up in the Faith?

With trust in God as your basic attitude have there been times when you found that you had to be persistent in prayer to get through or beyond the unknown stretches when the going got rough?! Jesus tells his disciples a parable about a persistent widow appealing to a bad judge to get justice on a matter. Jesus says to his disciples: “will you be that persistent in faith until the dramatic End of Time?!”

Can we imagine ourselves 10-20 years out? Through thick and thin, holding on with trust and prayer to those points down the line?! This is the question Jesus proposes and is confident (cf – 2 Timothy) that we will be faithful. And being faithful is something that is not ours alone to do; we have mothers and grandmothers, Dads and Granddads, friends and neighbors who help us be “persistent!”

All this is meant to be encouraging for the “long haul” until the “Son of Man comes” – Luke 18:8.

Some days we throw up our hands in frustration over a thousand afflictions. Just keep in mind the One toward whom you throw up your hands! God is far, far more caring than the Unjust Judge who reluctantly grants the persistent widow her request.

Keep the faith everybody!

Pastor Barry

Pastor Barry

Lord, Increase Our Faith!

Psalm 111 and Luke 17:5-19

Rev. John Collett returns for an “encore presentation” while your pastor observes the day at Locks Memorial’s Homecoming. John has generously booked in the two Sundays in a row. He may become a “regular!”

Our United Methodist way of doing church may have several drawbacks, but the availability of committed and trained preachers and the continuity of worship has been a plus. We ARE a connected people serving a Lord who is all about “increasing our faith.” A healthy working relationship between clergy and laity was one of John Wesley’s goals of leadership and few denominations have done as well as the United Methodist Church in mutual leadership by clergy and laity.

Needless to say, there will always be room for improvement, repentance, and reform! The church does not rest only on the past! Ever onward by renewed faith is our guiding theme.

Join John this Sunday at Kedron, pray for your sisters and brothers at Locks and look for your pastor to reappear October 20th…..”God willing!”

Prayers and blessings~~~†

Pastor Barry

Pastor Barry

There’s Still Room At The Table

Rev. John Collett brings our message this World Communion Sunday and will preside at the Lord’s Table. Many of you know John from his service as an Elder in The Conference where he has been a pastor, DS, Assistant to the Bishop, and now at Martin College. John and my wife LeNoir served together at Donelson Heights UMC way too many years ago!

He brings a message which will “focus on World Communion Sunday with a take on the Table of Jesus as the Table to which all in the community are invited and that the church ‘longs for’ those who are missing from the Table. It will be a kind of ‘evangelism of the Table” theme.”

Pray for the gathering this Sunday and pray for the one who leads in Word and Table.

Blessings, prayers, and hopes~~~+

Pastor Barry

Chaplain Rob

Nothing Will Defeat Me

This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. – 2 Corinthians 4:7

The apostle Paul led a hard life. He survived a shipwreck, persecution, and repeated imprisonment, not to mention the rigors of constant travel, the need to make a living while preaching the gospel, and the continual challenge of a chronic personal issue he described only as a “thorn in my flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7).

And yet he wrote, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

Why was Paul so resilient? He relied on God as the source of his power.

Our problems may be different from Paul’s, but we all struggle with life at times.

To make it through the turmoil, we must be plugged in to a source of power that is greater than what we can generate on our own.

Pretending we are strong only leads to frustration and pain.

But relying on God for our power allows us to live fully and resiliently in the midst of our ups and downs.

Ask Yourself
Can you think of times when you tried on your own to “be strong” in painful or difficult situations? What was the outcome?

What are some practical ways you can “plug in” to God as the source of power in your life?

Ask God
God, I want you to be my power source. I surrender my own powerlessness to your care and lean on your strength. Give me the courage to more consistently surrender my will to your will.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

Pastor Barry

Food, Clothing, and My Precious?

Amos 6:1-7, I Timothy 6:6-19 and Luke 16:19-31

It’s possible…..anyone could fall into hard times and be left with just food and clothing. No one wants to imagine it though. We often read of starvation, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, but few reading this have been there. Yet, life is full of “what ifs….” What if I had been born in a very poor country ? What if I fall ill and can’t work? What if I give until it hurts?

In Jesus and Paul’s time with calls to “seek ye first the Kingdom of God,” and the shift from identifying only as a Jew or only as a Gentile to being a follower of Christ, the real risk of falling into one of the above desperate conditions e.g. poverty, unemployment, was ever present. It made for an exciting life but with potential hardships.

This Sunday will be a call to empathize with those like poor Lazarus at the gate. And a call to beware of the “lure of riches” or rather “the love of money” which are considered to be threats to a life of faith, and, not to put too fine a point upon it, the root of all evil. Strong language indeed!

Yet, the joy of what Christ has done for us is the motivation here! The demanding language is always in the context of God’s grace bestowed upon, unmerited favor. What will we do when grace “sinks in?!” Awareness of grace is the starting point! What follows should be amazing too!

Blessings in your walk with Christ!

Pastor Barry

Chaplain Rob

Either God or Everything Else

In a well-known Bible story about a life-threatening storm on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus posed this probing question to his frightened followers: “Where is your faith?” he asked them as the wind roared, the seas rolled, and the ship rocked. Their response came in the form of another question, one that revealed the hidden reason for their fear and anxiety. They said to one another, “Who is this man, that even the winds and waves obey him?” (See Luke 8:22-26).

Their answer to the question Jesus asked revealed that their faith was in the wrong thing. They were trusting their knowledge of the sea and their own sailing abilities, both of which were now proving inadequate; they were not trusting Jesus. And why not? Because, as they themselves admitted, they didn’t yet realize who he was.

In another familiar biblical scene we see Mary at the empty tomb of Jesus, weeping because his body is gone. Walking up behind her, the resurrected Christ asks this two-in-one question: “Why are you crying? What are you looking for?” Not recognizing Jesus and thinking he was the gardener, Mary asked him to tell her where he had put the body of Jesus. Her response was similar to that of the disciples. While their faith was in the wrong thing, Mary was looking for the wrong thing. She was so desperate to find a dead body that she almost missed seeing a living Savior (See John 20:11-15).

Both questions Jesus asked “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25) and “Who are you looking for?”(John 20:15) have to do with his identity. Neither the disciples nor Mary had yet figured out who Jesus really was.

Most, perhaps all, human fear and worry is due to this one truth: We don’t yet know who Jesus is. And we worry about things that we have no control over.

By honestly answering the questions Jesus asked, we can pinpoint the source of our fear and worry. We trust the wrong things.

When we realize that our faith is based on something totally unreliable (i.e. money, status, job performance, etc), we are forced to look for something trustworthy. And when we recognize that we’re looking for the wrong thing, our blind eyes can then see the real thing, Jesus.

If your struggle has to do with loving God with your heart, ask yourself these two questions: “Where is my faith?” and “What am I looking for?”

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” ― Corrie ten Boom

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

Chaplain Rob

God Overcomes Our Guilt

Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. . . . If we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. – 1 John 3:20-21

Guilt is an interesting concept. By definition, it is a legal term. A person is guilty when he or she has actually committed some offense or crime. The definition can also include the feeling of having done something wrong. But it is not meant to describe an ongoing emotional state that is generalized into a perpetual sense of shame. That’s why John reminds us that God, who knows everything about us, is greater than our guilt feelings.

If we have a chronic or underlying sense of guilt or shame, we need to get to the root of it. One way to do this is to take what people in twelve-step programs call “a fearless moral inventory” of our lives.

Do we blame ourselves for what happened to us as kids? Are we holding on to some past failure? Whatever is at the root of those feelings must be brought to God and confessed to someone we trust with the realization that God already knows all about it and has taken away our guilt.

I encourage each of us to look at what holds us back today. Remember the past is over, the future is not written, and all we have is the present. My prayer today is that each of us will find a way to let go of any guilt or shame that holds us back.

Ask Yourself
What do you think you gain by holding on to feelings of guilt?

Why is it important to confess those feelings to God and to a trusted person?

Ask God
Dear God, help me to see that while feelings of guilt can be an important signal that something is wrong, they can also be a habit. You know everything, so help me as I get to the source of any chronic guilt in my life.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob