Mary Magdalene to the Roman Tribune given the task of finding the corpse of Jesus….”open your heart that you might see…you look for the wrong thing.”

The movie “Risen” is beautifully photographed and a well told story. It is not a Bible study. It shows respect for scripture and doesn’t overplay them for the most part either. It displays the brutality of people and their faith which is both fragile powerful at the same time. This faith was a grave danger to The culture of the day. It is the story of a soldier’s journey of faith as he witnessed the birth of the Church. And so it is with us.

“Risen” is thought provoking and well worth the price of admission. Especially if Jim Hayes buys the tickets! May my words be the words of this Roman, “I believe, I can never be the same”

Risen’s official site

Postscript:  suddenly there are a bunch of faith based and Bible story based movies.  Supporting them is how we get more family friendly and grace filled movies.   I pray this is a sign that people are searching and we do need to support them.      At least it is an opportunity for dialogue about Jesus.  Check out Miracles from Heaven, God’s Not Dead 2, and the Young Messiah.

 I did not grow up with the liturgical calendar but find balance and comfort in it.  Through the church seasons I experience the whole story of God’s redemptive plan in Jesus Christ and not just random little sound bites. Lent provides a season within the year that provides a touchstone to keep me grounded in Christ. 

Lent is hard to define. It has no gift wrap, Santa or bunnies but is a true internal journey with the Christ through these 40 days (plus the Sunday’s). You must define it for yourself. Somehow lent can better be defined by what it isn’t. 

Lent isn’t a holiday: Lent is a season of preparation and not a single day of commemoration. Certainly it is intimately tied to the resurrection at Easter and a rite for those being baptized but it also stands as its own event. Lent follows us in all of life’s “desert” times and not just in the spring. 

Lent isn’t about death:  the season begins with “Ash Wednesday” and the the touch of ashes with the words,  “it is from dust you came and to dust you must return”.  The United Methodists also use, “repent and believe the Gospel”.   Both responses invite us to look at our ultimate end from where we are.  This is not a focus on dying but a gaze at the Grace at work in our living!

Lent isn’t a church service:  like all of the Christian faith, Lent is organized as a community event but is starkly and even harshly personal.  “Lent” is not found in the Bible but the spirit of the journey pops up everywhere in the Gospels-especially in Jesus own witness. The point of the Lenten desert is to awaken our souls as Gods alone.  Alone-ness is scary. Lent is for the brave disciple regardless of age or faith-experience. 

Lent isn’t about guilt:  in the old prayer book we were invited to “earnestly repent” the “manifold sins and wickedness”.  Contrition is rather out of fashion.  Lent invites us to to explore our sin, certainly to be sorry, but more to grow in the strength of the super abundant forgiveness provided to us.  Repentance crushes guilt by turning away from it through God’s forgiveness and toward growth in our faith in Christ. 

Lent isn’t a giving up of the things you love:   Lent is about growing in faith through deferring pleasure for a season. One spiritual tool is “giving something up”.  The point is NOT what you give up but by using those things to provide a time and a reminder to deepen our faith relationship with God. Don’t give up, give out.  Do things that deepen faith by not doing things that can distract you from faith. 

The list goes on as you make your own discoveries. Lent is your journey.  God is prepared to meet you where you are and journey with you to the resurrection of Jesus at Easter.  Journey well. The Christ will meet you there.  

You are invited to an Ash Wednesday service on February 10, 2016 at 6:30 pm,  and worship with us through Easter.  Click here for more information on our website

  Resolutions leave me cold.  I set the usual New Year’s goals for many year and struggled with them until I discovered why they didn’t work-I was leaving God out!   Life is not a self-help strategy and the Bible is not a self help program.  
Our challenge together is to remember God first and build on the foundation of Jesus Christ given to us as a gift.  

My first goal for a blessed new day and new year flows from the promise of the new birth. I write it down at charge conference (a Methodist thing ), look at it first thing in the morning, and pray for strength to do this one thing constantly, ” to be and become a stronger disciple of Jesus Christ.”  Simple to say but harder to do. 

Rather than a resolution I am going to form my health, educational, vocational, financial and relational goals around the spiritual.  All of these life improvements will flow from the spiritual.  

Be Careful here… God doesn’t owe me anything. This isn’t a punch list to get God to deliver the goods but the framework of a good life, one that is bigger than my bank account or car. It may flesh out differently for you but here are my three foundations for 2016

First, I will love God’s word and not just read it.  This is primarily from Bible study but is much more than just a brain thing.  

Second, I will deepen my life of prayer beyond just spending more time in prayer. 

Finally, I will develop my skills for ministering beyond mere doing and more of a flowing from God’s Holy Spirit.  

Please join me!   Use these goals to craft your own!  I need the company and encouragement and we can all grow together in God’s super abundant Grace! 

  
         www.cheathamumc.net

People who want to clear the spiritual clutter and center in God.  It is a practice that predates our Bible and is present in all of the world religions.  It is still valid for the spiritual seeker. 

Tonight our news is full of reporting on yet another senseless mass shooting.  One more in this epidemic of violence.  

Our church is invited to a solemn assembly tomorrow.   Some will come to church and pray while others will pray where the go through their daily lives.  Some will fast and some won’t. I pray that all will seek healing for self, church, and nation. This language comes from Joel chapter 1, at a time of extraordinary crisis.  Edit

“14 Consecrate a fast,Proclaim a solemn assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the landTo the house of the Lord your God, And cry out to the Lord”

So what is it: ( taken Richard J Foster’s “celebration of Discipline” an excellent read). 

Fasting is Abstaining From all or part of food but not water for the purpose of centering on God in prayer for a particular period of time. 

 This is personal, between you and God and must be done with prayer. It is not to get God to do something but to clear your heart to pray!

How do you fast: briefly, Name a period of time, pray specifically and intentionally while you fast and choose what you abstain from.  

Some choose to fast from all food, some allow fruit and juice, some will give up an activity for prayer. others will fast from TV or technology instead of food. Drink lots of water. Pray when your stomach grumbles and pray when it doesn’t. Expect a blessing before you start and God will meet you there. 

If you are diabetic or need food for medicine- don’t fast. Find another way to center on God. 
May God bless you as you reach out at this time of crisis in our land as you reach out to pray. 

This is a book outline and a work in  progress.    The hope is to describe a way to grow closer to God through establishing a sacred space.  One description of a sacred spot is my back porch.

Everyone needs a back porch.  This is any place of solitude where you can  think God sized thoughts. Mine is actually my back porch. Yours might be anywhere.  The ultimate goal of this exercise is to recognize God wherever we are.  You are invited to  apply these principles and watch your awareness of God grow.  Read and comment but respect the copyright, “Thou shall not steal”. 

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy
    instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor

– Isaiah 61:1-3

It is a beautiful day in East Texas but not necessarily a pretty day.  It is 38 degrees and has rained and blown cold for the last 3 days or so. I have had a wonderful Thanksgiving day off and caught up some things that feed my soul.  Out of this weather that is only “fit for Crows and Methodist preachers”, I have enjoyed a quiet moment with God on the Back porch.  The rain has lent the day to beauty and stillness amid the holiday “Black Friday-ness.

This text is one of my favorites. It is a word from God to a weary people who were trapped in many levels of ugly.  Oppressed by a captor government, losing their identity as a people and as a faith.  They were clinging to this promise as their “oil of Joy” .  It was all they had.  From this captivity the Jews would rise as a way of faith and not just a racial group or a collection of aging traditions.  These ashes and hardship would forge them into the truth of what God had called them to be.  When they looked back at these treacherous times, they would remember only the fulfillment of God’s promise, the beauty of the outcome which was a true and tested faith.

This is a day that could be  defined as ugly due to the weather but the outcome, from the back porch, is a fresh look at the beauty that is all around.  I could focus on the many things that I can’t do today or how cold my toes are but I will choose to hear God’s still small voice in the pats of rain and the forced stillness that breaks all of the noise.

We are cruel to the things we call ugly and subjective in how that is defined.  In the social media today I see two images that reach into me and illuminate these scriptures.

The first was a sunrise in a particularly barren piece of desert.  In the non-descript nothing is a pallet of color that can only be from God’s own hand. In the light of day, this is an ugly path of dirt with no value.  However, in the twilight we see indescribable beauty.

The second photo was a line up of women of varying height who are all of the same numerical weight-each of them particularly beautiful.  Each of them probably knows the many labels of being “too something”, be it short, tall, round, top heavy, bottom heavy, dark or light.  Each had their own light that transcends the fashions of the moment.  Beauty is beauty.

Today on the back porch, I will choose beauty in the cold and blowing of wet leaves.  I will see gladness. Be that in the weather, circumstances, body weight, popularity, or some notion of the moment.  God chose captivity to give His people deliverance, the cross to give resurrection and the Holy Spirit to help us see the truth rather than just the thin veneer of appearances.

Where will your back porch moment come and where will it be.  Carve out your own space and fill it with time.  God will meet you there.