Thursday, March 31, 2022

The Importance of Showing Grace and Kindness to Our Fellow Christians


When we have an impaired relationship with one or more members of our church, this impaired relationship can affect our relationship with the other members of the church. It can also affect our ability to exercise our talents and gifts in the service of God.

By an impaired relationship I mean a relationship which is not what it should be with a fellow Christian. Christians are expected to treat each other with grace and kindness. When one Christian is unwilling to treat another Christian in that manner, particular when they are a part of the same church, the same local expression of the Body of Christ, they have an impaired relationship, and their impaired relationship will affect one or the other’s relationships with other Christians in the church. It may impede—restrict, hinder, or obstruct, one or both of them from using the talents and gifts which God has given them for the benefit of the Body of Christ.

Jesus intuitively understood how an impaired relationship could interfere with his disciples living and working together and taught them that loving one another should be a primary characteristic of their discipleship, the way which they showed the world that they had been influenced by his teachings and were trying to follow his example. Jesus told the first disciples.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples" (John 13: 34-35 NLT).

They were to exemplify to the world what it means to love others by their love for each other. When we exemplify love for others, we show by example what loving others means. We serve as a good example of loving others.

When we are unwilling for whatever the reason to show love for a fellow Christian, to show them grace and kindness, we are not doing a very good job of demonstrating that we are one of Jesus’ disciples.

We may have gotten the wrong idea that we are excused from showing them grace and kindness. We may have been led to believe that we do not have to carry out Jesus’ commandment. We are exempt from obeying it.

However, when Jesus gave what he described as a “new commandment,” he was not making a suggestion which we can ignore or follow when we feel like it. He was giving an order which he expected those who are genuinely his disciples, who believe in his teachings and try to live the way he did, to obey.

The thing about grace is that we do not have to like the person to whom we show it. We do not have to find them agreeable. Grace is goodwill and favor shown someone regardless of whether they merit or deserve it. It would not be grace if liking them and finding them agreeable was a pre-condition of showing it.

Kindness is also not tied to whether we like someone or find them agreeable. If we show kindness to only our family and our friends, Jesus taught, we are no different from the rest of the world.

We may let our feelings control our thinking and become a hindrance or obstacle to our showing grace and kindness. We may choose to nurse a grudge rather than forgiving someone, letting go of our anger toward them and no longer holding anything against them. We may not realize that we are harboring anger toward them, but it is evident in our behavior, in our unfriendliness toward them and our avoidance of them. Our actions speak louder than our words. We may express our anger toward them in indirect ways which harm their relationship with other members of our church. We may cause their relationship with other church members to become strained.

Jesus himself points to the solution to impaired relationships between church members. It is forgiveness and reconciliation. They give up any ill-feelings that they may have toward each other and once more treat each other as Christians should treat each other: they show each other grace and kindness. The healing of their relationship will open the way for the healing of other relationships that have been affected by their impaired relationship. It will enable them to exercise their talents and gifts fully for the church’s benefits. Their impaired relationship will no longer keep one or both from participating to the greatest extent possible in the worship, life, and ministry of the church.

What's On The Web: 'Blog Five Reasons Lead Pastors Should Be Involved with VBS' And More


When your congregation is all-hands-on-deck, then you need to be there. The lead pastor should be an active and visible part of VBS. Here’s why.

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What Should I Do With My Life?
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Wednesday, March 30, 2022

See a Need, Meet a Need


Matt Johnson, pastor of the Journey Church in Murray, Kentucky, introduced me to this concept during the ten years that I was involved in what was then a church plant. It is a very simple concept. We, our Sunday school class, our ministry team, our youth group, our small group, or we and two or three friends at church or outside of church identify an unmet need and do something to meet it.

We might repair a screen door for older person who cannot afford to hire a handyman. We might cut the grass in a disabled person’s yard or rake the leaves. We might regularly phone a shut-in every day to make sure that they are alright. We might drive to a medical appointment someone who does not have a car. We might do volunteer work with foreign exchange students. We might tutor a child who is struggling with their schoolwork. There are all kinds of needs, big and small, which we either by ourselves or with others can meet.

What we do to meet a need may be a one-time thing. Or it may be ongoing. When we identify a need and respond to it, we are showing grace and kindness to others. We are giving expression to our love for them. We are walking in the good works that God has prepared us to walk in.

Every church has untapped resources. They sit in the church’s adult Sunday school classes and the church’s sanctuary on Sunday morning. They are the parents of the children in the church’s kids ministry and the parents of the teenagers in the church’s youth ministry. Encouraging them to look for needs that they can meet and then taking steps to meet a need that they have identified is one way of mobilizing these resources for ministry.

Murray First United Methodist Church, the church which I attend, has as a part of its church mission statement making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Simply put, it is making disciples who make a difference in other people’s lives, in the community, and in the world.

Seeing a need and meeting it is one of the ways that we as disciples of Jesus Christ can make a difference. It may be a small difference, but we are impacting someone’s life. A lot of small differences can make a big difference. They have a cumulative effect.

In identifying and meeting needs, we meet new people. We form friendships and we can have spiritual conversations with them. We can point them to Jesus. Indeed, our actions themselves show the influence that Jesus is having upon us. We are living what he taught and practiced. We are loving God and loving others. We are showing our love of God in following Jesus’ teachings and example.

For 27 years I was involved in social work, helping and counseling others. There are many unmet needs that we can meet as disciples of Jesus Christ. There are a lot of ways that we can help others and do good to them.

The best way to start is to ask God to show us those needs that we can meet one way or another, by ourselves or with others. Ask God to open our eyes to them. Then get ready for God to do that.

What's On The Web: "The Rise of the 'Umms’" And More


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All Hallows Evening Prayer for Wednesday Evening (March 30, 2022) Is Now Online


All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.

The love that Jesus taught his disciples to show one another will not flourish in the absence of forgiveness. Unforgiveness is a too harder rocky soil for the seed of love to grow in.

The Scripture reading for this Wednesday evening’s service is Colossians 3:8-15 Forgiving Others.

The homily is titled “No Loopholes in Forgiveness.”

The link to this evening’s service is—

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2022/03/all-hallows-evening-for-wednesday.html

Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.

If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab. If a song begins partway through the video, move the slider back to the beginning of the video.

Previous services are online at

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/

May this service be a blessing to you.

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

How We Can Make Our Adult Sunday School Classes More Transformative


My last article, “Why Do We Have a Hard Time Loving People Like God Does,” got me thinking about how we can make Sunday school classes more effective in forming churchgoers into disciples of Jesus. Many older Christians are accustomed to attend a Sunday school class in addition to a service of public worship on Sundays. They may have attended a Sunday school class as children, and when they became adults, they joined an adult Sunday school class. Sunday school is a normal part of their Sunday routine. It may be much easier to make adult Sunday school classes more transformative than to persuade longtime members to participate in a small group.

A Sunday school class is a class held on Sundays, in which Christians, adults and children, are given religious teaching. An adult Sunday school classes typically consist of a lecture that is a part of a survey of the Bible or the exposition of a particular book of the Bible. The focus is on informing the attendees, not helping them to assimilate what they are hearing and applying it to their own lives. There may be some group discussion, but it is limited.

As a method of religious education this approach has its limitations. Among its limitations is that it is not transformative unless a genuine effort is made to make it transformative. By transformative I mean that it causes a major change to its attendees in a way that makes them better. The attendees make the critical transition from being hearers of the Word to doers of the Word.

It is too easy for members of adult Sunday school classes to become what the late J. I. Packer described as “sit and soak Christians.” They are like someone sitting in a hot tub. They soak in God’s Word as they might soak in hot water in a hot tub. They, however, do not put into action what they are learning. They are like sponges that absorb more and more water but are never squeezed out.

When the apostle Paul talks about doing everything for edification of a local congregation of the faithful, for building up the members of the Body of Christ, he is talking not just about informing them but also transforming them.

This is not to suggest that Sunday school classes are ineffectual: they do not produce good results. God influences us through his Word. They are, however, not as transformative as they might be if they were conducted differently.

Jesus used several different methods in his teaching. He preached to large crowds. He met with a small group of disciples, gave them further instruction, answered their questions, demonstrated what he meant, and then sent them out in pairs to do what he had shown them. Jesus also gave personal instruction to individual disciples, mentoring them. For this reason, Jesus often ministered with two or three of his disciples in tow. He did not have them tag along just to keep him company.

What happens in Sunday school classes but on a smaller scale is the first method of teaching. What is missing is the second and third methods of teaching. It is these two methods by which would-be followers of Jesus become disciples. While these two methods of teaching may be used informally, in an accidental way, we are not as intentional in their use as we might be.

We can do several things to make our adult Sunday School classes more transformative.
We can ask Sunday school teachers what they are doing in their class to help its members to become better disciples of Jesus. We need to ask them how they are specifically going about it. Some teachers may believe that they are helping the members of their class become better disciples when in reality, without realizing it, they are not.

We can offer existing and new Sunday school teachers training in how they can make their Sunday school class more transformative. This training should be mandatory. It can be presented as intended to help all Sunday school teachers to be on the same page in achieving the mission of the church. It is a good idea to offer regular training seminars for all Sunday school teachers which they would be expected to attend. A good Sunday school teacher not only has the ability to teach but also is teachable themselves.

In churches in which Sunday school classes have an independent life of their own, they may pull in a different direction from the stated mission of the church. It is important that everybody be on board where achieving the church’s mission is concerned. A clear, understandable mission statement and regular training seminars for Sunday school teachers are important steps to this end.

We can create new Sunday school classes that are designed to be transformative from the outset. These Sunday school classes will help integrate newcomers into the church as well as training and equipping them to be disciples of Jesus. Existing Sunday school classes tend to become closed groups. It is much easier for newcomers to join a new class.
Sunday school teachers can be encouraged to adopt a curriculum deliberately intended to help members of their class grow as disciples of Jesus. The regular training seminars can be used to suggest material that is suitable for this purpose.

Sunday school teachers can be urged to limit the length of lectures and to devote more time to group discussion. For the purpose of group discussion, they can be encouraged to divide the class into small discussion groups of 3 to 5 people, to give the participants in these discussion groups instruction on what they are expected to discuss, and to assign one of the participants the role of group facilitator.

The purpose of these groups is not just to discuss what they have just heard but to apply it to their own lives. At the conclusion of the group discussion each participant should be expected to have come up with something that they are going to do specifically in the week to apply what they have learned. These discussion groups should be ongoing so that at the next Sunday school class meeting the participants can report on what they did during the week and how it went.

Sunday school classes can be taught needed skills such as facilitating small group discussion, practicing active listening, forming friendships, identifying people’s spiritual addresses, starting gospel, or spiritual conversations, and other similar things.

Sunday school classes can be encouraged to take on community service projects and evangelism projects and to collectively apply in other ways what they are learn on Sunday.

We can pair more seasoned Christians with new Christians in mentoring relationships. We can teach Sunday school class members and other church members how to be anamchara, or soul friends, to each other.

Our Sunday school class may have already taken some of these steps. If so, fantastic. If it has not yet taken any of them, we may want to encourage it to do so.

Ultimately the responsibility for ensuring that we grow as disciples of Jesus is ours. God gives us the members and attendees of our church and our Sunday school class to provide us with help, encouragement, and support, but it is up to us whether we accept what they offer us. If we are not growing spiritually as we might, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves.

In this country we have far more going for us than many other places in the world. As well as the members and attendees of our church and our Sunday school class, we have a loving God, an infinite abundance of grace, a guiding Holy Spirit, an inspired Bible, two thousand years of Christian literature, and other Christians who love us and care deeply about our spiritual wellbeing.

Whether we realize it, we are truly blessed. God has indeed given us more than enough, a bountiful measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into our laps.

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Monday, March 28, 2022

Why Do We Have a Hard Time Loving People Like God Does?


What keeps us from embodying the “running, extravagant, welcoming love” that the father shows the younger son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son? We are led to believe that this kind of love is what God shows us. Why can’t we show the same kind of love to other people? This was the question I asked myself in church this past Sunday.

The father in the parable was more than ready to forgive his wayward son. He had forgiven him! Although the son had treated him shabbily, the father chose not to hold against the son what the son had done.

We, I have found, are not so forgiving. We do not allow people to make mistakes or allow for their weaknesses. We are ready to pummel them for the tiniest slip.

This is what Jesus was getting at when he talked about planks in our eyes and splinters in the eyes of other people.

It may be the negativity bias that causes us to magnify other people’s mistakes and to exaggerate their seriousness. The negativity bias is our tendency to look for the worst in other people. If we cannot find anything, we imagine it.

The ability to love in such a generous way does not come naturally to us. I prefer to use generous rather than extravagant to describe this kind of love because extravagant can have a negative connotation.

God, however, allows for this weakness and supplies us with grace that enables us to will and do what we would otherwise not will or do. We on our part must make use of this grace.
God in the person of the Holy Spirit will prompt us to love in this way, but we must respond to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. It is here where our attitudes and beliefs can act as obstacles to our responding and can cause us to respond halfheartedly or not at all. They can act as obstacles to us loving others like God loves us.

Our attitudes are our feelings or opinions about a particular individual or people in general; our beliefs are what believe. They play an important part in whether we can make use of the grace that God supplies us.

In Romans 12: 2 the apostle Paul draws attention to the connection between how we think and how we act.

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. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

If we allow God to influence the way that we think, we will also allow him to influence the way that we act. We will become a new person.

For example, we may decide not to forgive someone for something that they said or did or we imagined that they said or did. We may have misinterpreted their words or actions. We can misread people. This is not the same as gaslighting in which one person attempts to convince another that they are imagining things. Rather our feelings or opinions can affect our perceptions so we may distort in our minds what someone else is saying or doing in a negative way. We may hear as a criticism of ourselves a general observation of how people behave. We see no point in forgiving them because we have no interest in maintaining a relationship with them.

Our way of thinking, however, conflicts with Jesus’ teaching about forgiving others. Jesus teaches that we should forgive other people’s failings and not set a limit on how many times that we forgive them. He does not say that we can opt out of forgiving them if we decide that we no longer want them as a friend. Rather Jesus says that we should forgive them and treat them with grace and kindness regardless of what kind of relationship, if any, that we will maintain with them.

Jesus understands the human heart. He knows that we are capable of provoking someone else into saying or doing something that offends us, so we have an excuse to end our relationship with them. He knows that we may choose to misunderstand someone, in order to justify rejecting them.

Loving others as God loves us does not mean that we must become besties or bosom buddies with everyone, but it does mean that we should be gracious and kind in our treatment of them.

The reason then we are not embodying the love that God shows us is that we are not allowing God to rule our hearts and minds. We are not giving serious thought to what God teaches us through the words and example of Jesus and letting them guide what we say or do. Instead, we are allowing our feelings and opinions and our beliefs to sway us, feelings and opinions and beliefs, which are contrary to God’s teaching.

This happens because we have not full assimilated God’s teaching. We have not immersed ourselves in it and let it permeate our thoughts and our feelings. We have not absorbed God’s teaching to the point where it guides us without our needing to think much about it. It has not become second nature to us.

We may spend a lot of time in the Bible and learn all kinds of things. However, we may not acquire what is most important for us to be a disciple of Jesus. A disciple of Jesus is influenced by his teachings and tries to follow his example.

One of the weaknesses of Sunday School is its primary focus is upon study the Bible, not forming us as Jesus’ disciples. Studying the Bible and being formed as a disciple are not the same thing.

Sunday School classes are predicated on the notion that if we study the Bible, some good may rub off on us. We may learn something which may help us in living the Christian faith and life. The curriculum used in the Sunday School classroom, however, may not be specifically geared to our spiritual formation as a disciple of Jesus.

Sunday School was originally a scheme to teaching illiterate children of the lower classes to read so that they could read the Bible for themselves. The children worked as laborers in the factories and were given only one day off—Sunday.

A typical adult Sunday School class may have an enrollment of 25 to 30 members. A smaller number will attend the class on Sundays. The class format will be a lecture with limited discussion. It is noteworthy that Sunday School classes which are larger than 30 people tend to become complacent.

Spiritual formation is best done in small groups where the group leader’s primary role is to facilitate discussion and to keep the group focused on what it is studying. Rather than undertaking a general survey of the Bible or a detailed exposition of a book of the Bible, such a small group will look at only those parts of the Bible that are essentially to forming us as one of Jesus’ disciples. It is a much more focused approach.

Spiritual formation in small groups is closer to the lengthy catechesis, or religion instruction, that would-be Christians underwent in the early Church. Its purpose is to train and equip individuals as disciples of Jesus.

While a small group may have as many as ten to twelve people, research shows that three or four, at most five, is the optimal size for a small group.

In the online book, Conversational Leadership, David Gurteen observes—

“Anything more than five and the conversation does not work so well: one or two people tend to dominate; the conversation breaks into two, even three; frequently one person is entirely cut out of the interaction, and there is little energy in the group.”

Sermons cannot carry the burden of forming a congregation into disciples of Jesus. They can teach us new things and reinforce what we have already learned. A weekly talk, however, while it may be very edifying and inspiring, cannot meet that need by itself. This is not to downplay the importance of the sermon but to draw attention to the need for spiritual formation opportunities that supplement and support the sermon.

Churches often have ministry team leaders and volunteers who have a busy Sunday that does not permit them to take advantage of any spiritual formation offering on that day. They may be engaged in ministry of some kind during the sermon. While the sermons may be recorded on video, they may not have an opportunity to view the video. As a consequence, they may not benefit from hearing the sermon. Even if they do view it, they may have other things going on in their lives, as do other members of the congregation, which may exercise a stronger influence on them.

John Wesley realized that it took more than listening to sermons for someone to become and remain a disciple of Jesus. He organized the early Methodists into classes (small groups) and bands (networks of small groups). While small groups called “societies” were not unknown in Wesley’s time, they were not as systematically organized as Wesley’s classes and bands. As well as nurturing its members in the Christian faith and life and giving spiritual care to them, a class offered a degree of accountability not seen in a typical twenty-first century Sunday School class.

Whenever a class reached a certain size, a maximum of 20 people, it was required to divide into two new classes. In this way a class did not become too large and therefore unable to effectively carry out its functions.

Wesley’s general rules, sometimes referred to as “simple rules,” were intended to guide the early Methodists in their classes. They are to do no harm, and avoid all kinds of evil; to do good; and to attend the ordinances, the ordinances being the various means of grace such as services of public work, the Lord’s Supper, searching the Scriptures, family and private prayer, and other similar things through which God influences us and transforms us.

As we can see, a number of things keep us from showing the kind of love to others, which God shows to us.

In the final analysis, it must be acknowledged that the responsibility for our spiritual growth is in large measure ours. We can put little time and effort into growing spiritually, hoping that we can get by this way. However, as Jesus points to our attention, a tree is known by its fruit. When we give little attention to our spiritual growth, our fruit will be wizened and shriveled. We will not be producing the kind of fruit that we ought to be as a disciple of Jesus. We will struggle to love others as God loves us.

It is tempting to neglect our spiritual growth. We may see no benefit to ourselves in embodying the generous love that God shows us. What do we get out of loving those difficult people in our lives and in our church? Our life is much easier when we do not speak to that older church member around whom we feel bad about ourselves, guilty and ashamed about the bad or unkind things that we have said and done and avoid and ignore them. The truth, however, is that the older church member is not the one who is making us feel bad about ourselves. It is us. We are not living our lives in harmony with God according to the teachings and example of Jesus and deep down inside us we know it.

The benefit of loving others with the same generous love as God loves us is that we are doing what is God’s will for us. We are doing what is good, pleasing, and perfect, as Paul puts it. Our will and God’s will are aligned with each other. We have peace of mind.

When we hear the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we tend to focus upon the father’s love for the wayward son. We may overlook one important thing. When the son came to his senses, he concluded that he would be better off working as a hired servant in his father’s house than he would for as underpaid, starving pigherd for a pig farmer in a foreign land.

For the Jews pigs were unclean animals. Pigherds were unclean people. A farmer who raised pigs was unclean too. Someone could not get much lower than working as a pigherd. The pods which were fed to the pigs were most likely fava bean pods. The pods are tough and hairy and not fit for human consumption. From the perspective of Jesus’ original audience, the wayward son had fallen on really hard times.

What the son decided was that he would be better off obeying the will of his father than he would be doing whatever he felt like doing. Doing the latter got him into the predicament in which he finds himself. In deciding to return to his father’s house and seek employment as a servant in that house, he decided to submit to the will of his father.

Nowhere in the parable does Jesus suggest that the father’s generous forgiveness of the son means that the son, in returning home, is free to continue to act in a willful manner. While the father takes him back as a son, not a servant, the son is expected to obey the father and to do his will.

God’s generous love and forgiveness does not free us from obedience to God. Some of us may have acquired the mistaken belief that it does. This belief may account for why we do not give a whole lot of attention to loving others, forgiving them, and treating them with grace and kindness. We believe that God will forgive or pretend not to notice what we are doing.

In adopting this attitude, we are using to the wrong end God’s goodwill toward us. We are presuming upon God’s generosity. We are not showing God the respect that God deserves. God does not forgive us so we can go on doing bad things and harming ourselves or others. God forgives us with the expectation that we stop what we are doing. When we persist in doing it, we grieve God.

When Jesus saved the woman caught in adultery from a cruel death and forgave her, he told her to go and sin no more. He did not tell that she could keep on doing what she had been doing—having sex with someone other than her husband. He did not indulge her proclivity to do what is wrong.

One step that we can take to become better at loving others is to identify what feelings and opinions and beliefs we are allowing to block us from being more loving. What feelings are we allowing to control us? What thoughts and ideas are we allowing to dominate our thinking? We ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we are going wrong, where we are allowing our feelings to get the better of us, where we are drawing the wrong conclusions. We then weigh these feelings, opinions, and beliefs against Jesus’ teachings and example, asking the Holy Spirit’s help in carefully considering whether we are doing the right thing—what God would want us to do.

The New Front Door to Your Church


The first time a visitor walks into your church building, they probably know more about your church than you think. More than that, visitors may have even participated in a worship service already.

Much has been written about church websites being an unexpected “front door” to the church, but in the aftermath of the pandemic and near-universal adoption of video technology by churches, your online worship service is probably your new front door. For many, the first time they encounter your congregation will be through a video. Read More

How we experience a service when we view it online differs from how we experience it when we take part in the service in person.

Some churches came to recognize that difference and made changes in their services to improve the experience of those viewing the services online. They shortened the services, shortened the sermons, used close-up shots of the preacher and the musicians, and closed captioned and subtitled the lyrics of hymns and songs and the words of Scripture readings.
 
Among the results is that they gained more viewers than did churches which did not make these changes. The latter may have lost viewers to churches that did.
 
The quality of a church's livestreamed and video-recorded services is something that churches do need to give much more attention than they presently do. As well as tightening up their services and doing a better job of choreographing the services, they need to improve how they show them online. Viewers do not need to see long-shots of worshippers scattered around a sanctuary or the preacher, the praise team, or the choir.
 
Pastors need to work with their tech teams so they get the best results. What the viewer sees online is going to be their first impression of a church and pastors will want that impression to be a good one, an impression that will want to make the viewer visit the church in person.

Leading with Clarity


A few years ago, when preparing to launch a non-permanent church campus I asked an intern to wipe down the school’s water fountains. She smiled and nodded but sighed as she walked away. A little later in the day as we were unloading supplies I asked, “Did I upset you earlier?” She explained how sometimes she felt insulted because I dumbed things down, shared too many details, and tended to repeat myself. I asked for an example, and she laughed and said, “you told me, in detail, how to wipe down the water fountains, explained what happened the last time you asked someone to wipe down the water fountains and they did it wrong, and you’ve reminded me about six times today to wipe down the water fountains. I got the message loud and clear, you want the water fountains to be clean.” I cringed and quickly apologized. I thought I was bringing clarity when I was only creating frustration.

Over the years, I’ve learned clarity comes when you care enough about those you are communicating with to make a conscious effort to be cautious, clever, and brief. Let’s take a closer look at what that means. Read More

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Musings on Grace and Kindness


Two words that stuck with me from my pastor’s sermon this past Sunday were grace and kindness. He ended the sermon by encouraging the members of the congregation to show grace and kindness to those in their lives, to those around them.

Most of us would like to experience more grace and kindness in our lives.

If we look up grace in a dictionary, we will discover that it has multiple meanings. It can describe a way of behaving which is polite and pleasant and merits respect. It can also describe how we act when we cut someone some slack or give them a break, when we treat them in a less harsh or critical way. It can describe when we allow someone more time to pay us what they may owe us or to complete something. It can describe the goodwill and love that God shows humanity. It can also describe God’s influence working in the lives of human beings, individually and collectively

A word that is associated with grace albeit they are not interchangeable is mercy. Grace can be differentiated from mercy as follows. When God shows us grace, he shows us his unmerited favor. When God shows us mercy, he withholds our deserved punishment. Grace and mercy are the flipsides of the same coin—love. When God shows us his grace, he is generously showing his love to the unworthy. When he shows us mercy, he is compassionately showing love to the weak. God showed grace to us when he reconciled himself to us through Jesus. He shows us mercy when he forgives our sins when we repent.

When we show someone grace, we are showing to someone else what God shows toward us—favor that they do not merit. When we enjoy someone’s unmerited favor, they give us an advantage. They help us, and they approve or support us. They do what they are doing because they want to do it. We do not deserve it and have not earned it. It is an expression of goodwill, friendly or helpful feelings toward us.

However, if they do not feel any goodwill toward us, they are not going to show us their favor. If they feel ill-will, bad and unkind feelings toward us, they will withhold their favor.

This is one of the main reasons that forgiveness and reconciliation are so important in the life of a disciple of Jesus. If we harbor ill-will toward someone, a fellow human being or a fellow Christian, we cannot show grace or kindness toward them, We cannot show them the love that Christians are expected to show toward other people. Refusing to show love toward one person diminishes our ability to show love toward others.

On the other hand, having forgiven someone and being reconciled to them, once more showing friendliness toward them, we are free to show them grace and kindness. We are copying our heavenly Father and showing ourselves to be his children.

If we, however, insist that they must act in a certain way before they can enjoy our favor or decide that we want nothing to do with them, we are not showing them grace and we are not acting like God. We are arguably putting ourselves in God’s place.

One of the points of the Gospel reading (Luke 15: 11-32) for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, this coming Sunday, is that the father’s forgiveness of the wayward younger son is a generous forgiveness. The father does not have to be generous toward the son. The son did not expect his father to be so generous. The older brother resented his father’s generosity.

It is the kind of forgiveness that God expects us to show others. A generous forgiveness enables us to be gracious and kind. We are free of anger and bitterness.

According to the Collins Dictionary, someone who is kind behaves in a gentle, caring, and helpful way toward other people. Other qualities that characterize the behavior of a kind person is that they are friendly, generous, and thoughtful of others. They show compassion—feelings of distress, pity, sympathy, and understanding for the suffering or misfortune of another.

The presence of unforgiveness, the unwillingness to forgive, and unfriendly or hostile feelings can prevent us from showing kindness. So can indifference, a complete lack of interest in someone or concern for them. It can be accompanied by little or no attention to them or their well-being.

Children whose parents reacted to them in this way may internalize their parents’ attitudes and behavior and show the same reaction to others when they themselves become adults. As a consequence, behaving like a disciple of Jesus and showing grace and kindness to others may prove very challenging for such individuals. Unless they are encouraged to show grace and kindness to others and taught how to go about it, they will be impeded in their spiritual development.

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus tell his disciples—

You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.” Luke 5: 36 NLT

The thrust of Jesus’ words is that his disciples must show the same kind of love that God does. Jesus has just told them if they loved their enemies and did good to them, they would be acting like children of God who loves everyone, even the unthankful and the wicked.

In his letter to the Ephesians the apostle Paul writes—

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.” Ephesians 5:1-12 NLT

The God whom Paul is telling the Ephesians and us to copy is love. As the apostle John tells us—

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 1 John 4:8 NLT

In copying God, we emulate his love.

How then do we emulate God’s love? By showing grace and kindness to others as God shows grace and kindness to us.

The implications are that we cannot be unfriendly or indifferent to those in our lives, to those around us. If we are going to order our lives after Jesus’ teaching and example, we must show the same kind of generous forgiveness to those who offend us as the father did to his wayward younger son.

Being indifferent to others is worse than being unfriendly or hostile toward them. When we are indifferent, we simply do not care. We do not have enough feelings to muster to feel anything about someone or something. We have no feelings at all.

Indifference is much more harmful than dislike or hatred because we do not give those toward whom we are indifferent an opportunity to express themselves or to process their response to our indifference. Those toward whom we show indifference feel abandoned and forgotten.

Indifference can cause us to do nothing when we should be taking action. For an example, an indifferent parent may ignore a crying baby. Failure to thrive is a condition seen in young babies who receive little or no parental attention because a parent is indifferent to the baby’s needs. Failure-to-thrive babies do not grow like normal babies. They are listless and unresponsive.

Babies who are not held and cuddled by a parent or other caregiver will die even though they may be fed regularly, or they will exhibit violent behavior if they survive infancy. They suffer from stroke deprivation.

Strokes are “the recognition, attention, or responsiveness that one person gives another.” They are necessary for a human being’s emotional, psychological, and physical wellbeing and in the case of babies, their very survival.

Indifference dehumanizes the person toward whom we show indifference. We deny them the qualities of being human and therefore having enough value or worth to have feelings toward them. We reduce them to an object or a thing.

Indifference may be caused by a neurological or psychological disorder. Indifference in the form of apathy and loss of interest is a major symptom of depression.

An attitude of indifference to others and accompanying behavior can also be learned from a parent or other caregiver.

Indifference can be feigned, but feigned indifference is as harmful as real indifference. We are refusing to give someone else recognition, attention, or responsiveness, which may be vital to their health and happiness. We are adding to the stresses in their lives.

Unfriendliness and indifference are not options for Jesus followers if they are sincere about living their lives according to Jesus’ teachings and example. We show unfriendliness or indifference to others, we are not imitating God. We are not treating them as someone whom God dearly loves and treasures.

We are also reinforcing a common stereotype of Christians: we are hypocrites. We are pretending or lying about what we believe.

If we are going to genuinely represent Jesus to an unbelieving world, we need to show grace and kindness to not just our family and friends, but everyone in our lives, everyone around us. We cannot hope to fulfill the Great Commandment to love God and to love others and the Great Commission to make disciples of all peoples and teach them what Jesus commanded if we are unfriendly or indifferent to them.

Unfriendliness and indifference are the exact opposite of grace and kindness.

When we show grace and kindness to others, we show that God is indeed the loving God that Jesus and the apostles tell us God is, a loving God who transforms the lives of those who are disciples of Jesus so that they are loving like himself. When they see the difference in our lives and experience the grace and kindness we show them, they may be led to conclude, “There must be something to what they believe. See how they love people. See how they love each other.”

Saturday Lagniappe: 'Church Planters, Let’s be Honest' And More


The truth about church planting never resembles the architect's renderings and the slick “plant with us” pamphlets. The realities can leave you confused and disillusioned. Here are five truths that might keep you keep you sane and in the game.

Starting a New Ministry Project? Then Put these 5 Pillars in Place First
Before you implement a change, you must make sure you have these five supporting pillars in place.

Israel’s Canaanite Conquest Presents a Question with Four Possible Answers
The story doesn’t have to be a stumbling block, but we should approach it with fear and trembling.

Why Liturgy Is Important for Outreach
Whether it has come from hundreds of years of tradition or it’s just from how we are feeling as we put together service elements, we all operate with a plan, and that is what a liturgy is—a plan. And here’s why liturgy is important for the church’s outreach.

FAQ: Does Predestination Mean God Is the Author of Sin?
This question is a struggle for so many. It’s important to keep in mind that there is a distinction—a very important distinction—between God’s active decree and his permissive decree.

Avoiding Difficult People Is Not Christlike Love
For Christians, the issue is especially complicated. Christ’s body on earth is made of human bodies. It’s inevitable that we’ll encounter people we find annoying or depressing or weird or clingy or even downright mean in our small groups or pews. So what’s our prescription? Do we take the path of the meme? The Bible, as ever, offers a better way.

Friday, March 25, 2022

What's On The Web: Why Do We Hate Each Other So Much? And More


Why Do We Hate Each Other So Much? (5 Reasons Anger Is the New Epidemic)
Christians aren't exempt from the trend toward anger, outrage and division online. In fact, there are a good number of Christians who are fuelling it.

What Stops People from Being Kinder?
The Kindness Test is the world's largest survey on what it means to be kind. It's shed light on the barriers that stop us being kind – but also that empathy truly is international.

Social Media Fosters Distrust in Institutions. But We Can’t Live Without Them.
Social media enables the same voices that (rightly) celebrate the downfall of corrupt institutions to wield significantly more power with even less accountability. We can’t live without institutions even if we sometimes don’t feel like we are flourishing within them.

3 Truths About Your Non-Religious Neighbor
We must simplify what it means to be a good neighbor and to build relationships with the people whom God has placed around us.

Five Marks of Complacency
Most leaders would say, “I am anything but complacent!” I know. That’s the problem. No one thinks they are complacent. So consider the following five signs that you might be more complacent than you think....

The Lord’s Prayer – New Musical Setting
Jamie Brown shares a new musical setting of the Lord's Prayer.

Six Ways to Stop Thinking Fearful Thoughts
The truth is, you can’t stop some of these ‘tracks’ on your own. You have to welcome the power of God to record over these tracks with healthy, fulfilling tracks of love, compassion, grace, and beauty.

All Hallows Evening Prayer for Sunday Evening (March 27, 2022) Is Now Online

 


All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.

The calling of every Christian as one of his followers is to represent Jesus here on earth. How are you doing?

The Scripture reading for this Sunday is 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21 Christ’s Ambassadors.

The homily is titled “Stand-Ins for Jesus.”

The link to this Sunday evening’s service is—

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2022/03/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for-sunday_25.html

Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.

If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab.

Previous services are online at

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/

May this service be a blessing to you.

Thursday, March 24, 2022

What's On The Web: 'The Growth of the Hispanic Population in the U.S. and What It Means for Your Church' And More


The Growth of the Hispanic Population in the U.S. and What It Means for Your Church
One of the most notable demographic changes is the rise of the Hispanic population. Hispanics made up over half of the total U.S. population growth over the last ten years. Today one in five Americans is Hispanic.

Creative Facility Solutions for New Churches
Finding a meeting place for a new church plant is a major challenges for church planters.

Divorcing an Abusive Spouse Is Not a Sin
Not only is it morally justified, it also aligns with Christ’s heart for the vulnerable.

How Your Church Can Partner With Your Community
How can your church partner with your community? It may feel challenging, even impossible, especially if your congregation is set in its ways. But it’s worth doing. Forming partnerships with your community opens the door for both your town or city and the church to be blessed beyond expectation.

What the Church Must Provide Women in Today’s Culture
Our churches have a unique and powerful opportunity to serve women and girls in this cultural moment. As discouragement and disillusionment threaten to take hold, women’s ministries can hold out a particular kind of hope—a hope that’s truth-filled, soul-deep, and all-satisfying.

Don’t Miss the Main Point of Bible Study
How many of us consciously open the Scriptures or engage in the work of theology as a way of seeking the face of God himself?

4 Powerful Questions to Engage Your Small Group in Any Bible Passage
Helping your small group respond to God as you dig into the Bible together is largely a matter of asking the right questions. The most common mistake that group leaders make is to ask too many questions.

Help! I’ve Stopped Caring About God.
Why Christians slide into spiritual apathy, and how they can recover.

6 Ways to Create a Culture of Evangelism
I found several elements missing from this otherwise helpful article. They are the importance of establishing and building a relationship with the person with whom you are having a gospel conversation, of actively listening to people, and of knowing their "spiritual address." what is happening in their lives.

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

What's On The Web: 'Study: More Congregations Are Reopening but Attendance Remains Flat' And More


Study: More Congregations Are Reopening but Attendance Remains Flat
Only 27% of respondents in a Pew study said they attended services in person this month. Back in September, when the coronavirus was still surging, 26% said they attended in-person religious services.

5 Signs You’re a Leader who Talks too Much
How do you know if you are a leader who talks too much and what can we do to stop?

4 Ways to Avoid Purge Night Online
Here are four ways to avoid “purge night” (which is every single day) online....

The Social Media Ministry
We need to think a bit more before we put that post out there.

Am I Sinning? 6 Questions for Moral Gray Areas
To say it another way, a gray area (biblically speaking) is any matter that is not clearly commanded, prohibited, or permitted in Scripture.

How to Show God's Love to the Gay Community
How does the love of God, as demonstrated in the gospel, inform how we share Christ to those in the gay community around us? In this video, speaker, author, and Bible professor, Dr. Christopher Yuan, seeks to answer that question and how Christians can better love their gay brothers and sisters.

All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (March 26, 2022) Is Now Online


All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.

What do you feel like doing when someone or something angers or displeases you? What do you do? Thinking about what Jesus taught and practiced, what else might you do?

The Scripture reading for this Saturday is Romans 12: 1 -21 Life in God’s Service.

The homily is titled “Turn the Other Cheek.”

The link to this Saturday evening’s service is—

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2022/03/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for-saturday_22.html

Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.


If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab.

Previous services are online at

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/   

May this service be a blessing to you.

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

What's On The Web: "The Essential Small Church" and More


The Essential Small Church (7 Reasons We’re Needed)
We can and must appreciate what each church does well, without creating any sense that one size of congregation is better than another size of congregation.

Americans’ Return to Church Has Plateaued
Two years in, more congregations are open without COVID-19 precautions, but Americans aren’t more likely to show up.

It’s Not as Bad as You Think
Eric Raymon warns against treating everything as a catastrophe. Catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion to which we appear to be particularly prone at this time in our history. Or maybe humans have alwaysseen things as worse than they really are.

When the Congregation Leaves Town, Should the Building Follow?
How churches survive “spiritual gentrification.”

Resisting the Politics of Fear
Why Christians should be known for keeping their cool.

5 Enemies Of The Soul That Hurt Your Church
The pressure to solve problems in the church requires so much focus that we have little energy left to conquer the enemies of the soul.That leaves room for these quiet destroyers to do significant damage.

What About Those Who Have Never Heard?
As tragic and heartbreaking as the question is, the answer is very simple: Ultimately, this is answered in and through the very character of God.

Is Physical Abuse Biblical Grounds for Divorce?
Jared C. Wilson builds the Biblical case for physical abuse as grounds for divorce.

6 Wrong Ways to Approach Difficult Bible Passages
Here are six ways we easily go astray when approaching difficult texts in Scripture.

Do Blogs Still Matter? A perennial question for bloggers.

18 Ways to Ruin Your Reputation on Facebook
Your Facebook posts and comments can harm you and others.

Monday, March 21, 2022

All Hallows Evening Prayer for Wednesday Evening (March 23, 2022) Is Now Online

 

All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a disciple is “a person who believes in the ideas and principles of someone famous and tries to live the way that person does or did." We as Christians claim to be disciples of Jesus whom we say that we believe is the Lord of all, not just Christians like ourselves but everybody. How are we doing at ordering our lives on Jesus’ teachings and example? If we were grading ourselves, what grade would we give ourselves? What grade do we think other people would give us? 

The Scripture reading for this Wednesday evening’s service is Romans 12: 1-21 Life in God’s Service.

The homily is titled “A Foretaste of the Peaceable Kingdom.”

The link to this evening’s service is—

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2022/03/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for_21.html

Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.

If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab. If a song begins partway through the video, move the slider back to the beginning of the video.

Previous services are online at

https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/

May this service be a blessing to you.

What's On The Web: 'Five Reasons Digital Church Attendance Numbers Are Getting Confusing' And More


Five Reasons Digital Church Attendance Numbers Are Getting Confusing
How is your church counting digital attendance? Or is it?

4 Ministry Truths From the Bestselling Bible Translations List
There are four storylines worth noting when you consider the most recent Bible Translations Bestsellers list....

The Bridge That Connects Bible Study and Prayer
Biblical meditation is sometimes described as a bridge between Bible study and prayer.

Why You Need to Think Like a Fish
You can’t be a good fisherman unless you learn to think like a fish. You need to learn their habits, preferences, and feeding patterns if you want to catch them.

Saturday, March 19, 2022

Louis Weil, 86: Liturgist, Theologian, Professor, Ecumenist


With Louis Weil’s death on March 9 at age 86, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, and indeed the ecumenical Church lost one of its premier liturgical theologians. His life and ministry affected so many people, both directly and indirectly.

Louis grew up in a non-observant Jewish family, but always treasured that heritage. In his youth he bore the sting of anti-Semitism, but in maturity he claimed that his heritage gave him a more profound appreciation of Christianity. How he came to that transformative understanding is a tale worth remembering.

A native of Texas, Louis completed his undergraduate degree in 1956 at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and seemed destined for a career in the fine arts. An accomplished pianist, he continued an arts trajectory with an MA from Harvard (1956). During that time, however, a path with an unexpected difference presented itself. Walking by the monastery of the Cowley Fathers in Cambridge one late afternoon, he stepped into the chapel of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist just in time for Solemn Evensong. He later testified to a moment of conversion: “I entered as an agnostic and left as a Christian.” Read More

Image Credit: The Living Church
Louis Weil influenced my thinking in regard to the corporate nature of worship, the assembly as the celebrant of the Eucharist, and music in the liturgy. I read a number of his essays as well as Liturgy in Living. I greet the news of his passing with feelings of sadness. He wrote with clarity and conviction. He helped to spark my own interest in liturgy and church music.