Glad you’re doing well. Think of you and your years at UR often!

Jessie (Schumann) Weaver

Your “Framework for Fatherhood” sermon is the one that ultimately pushed me over the edge. I read it this evening, 2 days after the birth of our third child. As you state in your sermon, love comes in many different flavors, and our first son introduced me to a love that is so strong, so raw, and so pure that, 4 years later, it continues to amaze me on a daily basis. When my wife was pregnant with our second child, I was afraid that I would never feel that same intense, awesome love for another child. How could I split my love? With the birth of our daughter, I discovered that my capacity for love actually expanded and added new dimensions. I had the same fears as the birth of our third child approached. With our second son, I have once again experienced an exponential growth in my capacity for love that reaches into all corners of my life.

I was sorry to read that your father passed away 10 years ago – I remember him as a smart man with a great voice (attributes which you inherited) who liked to play classical music. I am truly fortunate that my father is still around and that I have been able to thank him for the many things he did that helped me become the person I am today. Your sermon will be the fodder for a future father/son chat.

Please continue publishing your sermons. They are being read – and appreciated.

This is a message that is neither given nor heard often enough — simple acts of compassion, caring, really listening, not judging on a daily basis can build a solid foundation on which relationships with others, the church and God are formed. Yes, you have to put yourself out there in order to do that, but we are never alone in this effort. God is always with us, and if we listen, He will guide us as we help others. And in helping others we learn, we grow in our faith, and often find blessings and gifts in surprising ways.

We don’t have to all be church scholars, great students of the Bible – able to quote chapter and verse, nor do we have to have all the answers to be good Christians and to share that blessing with others. I think it’s just important that we share whatever we’ve got. (Even if it isn’t the best china!)

High potency faith — I would tend to think there is high potency faith is in you. The faith to believe that God has placed you there so that you might be the example to those around you. The faith to keep studying scripture and the teaching of other scholars so that you may be filled with the knowledge to make a difference to one or two or 75.

High Potency congregations- — I think there are ebbs and flows in churches. Jesus did preach, but his most memorable work seems to be one on one. Maybe there are times when a preacher’s work is best done one on one. I don’t claim to know. It’s just a thought from a guy that’s skeptical about the ability for a rural rev to turn a whole congregation from traditional thinking into semi-Pentecostal street evangelist that work part time for the
Salvation Army, (So I exaggerate to make a point) but from what I read, you are doing your part. (I read week one and two) You never know whom you might influence.
As a matter of fact, I will be on a HFH jobsite Saturday.

Blessings

We lived in Altanta for 5 1/2 years, but never made it to Northpoint — it’s huge! Have you been?

Sometimes, though, I think that faith or Christianity is a little like leprocy or the flu — if you don’t want to “catch” it, you’ll do everything in your power to avoid getting it. I think those most likely to catch it are those who are open to it, have a need for it, or maybe had it before and have just avoided it for a time. If you extend a hand, an invitation, an opportunity — sometimes that’s all it takes. And yes, definitely, excitement and enthusiasm are most always contagious — unless you’re trying to avoid being “caught”, in which case people are sometimes pushed in the other direction by one’s overly enthusiastic approach. (Can you say Bible “BELT”?)

A key factor here, I think, is to meet people where they are in their journey of faith, and proceed with caution and one’s best listening skills.

No need to apologize for rambling…and thank YOU for the challenge. You’ve actually verbalized some sentiments of my own–sentiments that only get partially expressed in sermons and blog posts. Although the way that I would respond to your musings would probably vary based on my own energy levels at any given moment, today I’m inclined to put it like this…

I don’t think that the ‘lack of zeal’ that you describe is caused by a bad behavior pattern or character flaw. The very fact that you bother to ask such questions suggests that it matters to you ‘where those signs of life’ are.

No, I’m inclined to think that our disillusionment (with ourselves, with others) often stems from the fact that God has blessed us with a glimpse of something more. We know from experience what deep community can be and what being ‘bowled over’ by God’s presence can do to a person. [Of course, it could be that one of the weaknesses of our evangelical approach to spirituality is that we’re told to expect that level of intimacy all the time. From what I’ve read of the spiritual classics, such moments of wonder are actually rare gifts–not the stuff of everyday life. But that’s a musing for another time…)

I wonder if…because we sense what ‘could be’…we ache inside when our own lives and the life of our community fall so far short of the ideal. But perhaps the ache itself is a kind of grace–a refusal to settle for less than all God offers. And perhaps if we keep aching, we contribute to the ‘deep shift’ that needs to happen in order for Christianity and our individual church (and ourselves) to get out of the way enough for the kingdom to be born in an through us.