Every year the public and most private schools take a week in March to give a break to students, faculty, and staff.  It is a time to rest, vacation, and recuperate.  I'm married to a teacher and this break is greatly welcomed.  She welcomes it with delight, not because she doesn't like her job, but because everyone needs a break.  Everyone needs a rest.  This week is our spring break.  We are taking a break from the normal life.  We aren't thinking about school or our jobs.  Just taking time to enjoy our time together as a family.

We should all take time to take a break from the normal life and enjoy one another.  Enjoy our families.  We should re-focus our lives back to what really matters.  This gives us strength to do the things that must be done and to look out for the things in life we let slip by at times.

In the Ten commandments, God instructs Israel to take a day each week as a time of Sabbath.  We have lost this idea along the way.  Honestly, they did also, oftentimes.  God gave Isaiah a new thought about fasting for the people.  That it should change their focus to others and not so much on themselves.  Listen to God's words in Isaiah.

Isaiah 58 (take special note of verses 6-10)
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
    Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
    and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
    they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
    and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
    and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
    ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
    and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
    and the Lord’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
    and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the Lord,
    and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
    and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

I know saying that we shouldn't take vacations, rest, recuperation, or time to ourselves and just our family.  However, when we rest, when we fast, may we be recharged to live for the sake of others.  I would hate if we waste those moments simply to recharge for the sole purpose to return to the very thing that is zapping our energy in the first place.

Let your light rise in the darkness, and let your night become like the noonday.

A second piece to the vision of the University Church of Christ is Resonate:  Building Loving Relationships.  We believe that being part of a community of faith means more than just meeting together to individually worship, but join together in community.  We were created to love one another.  Brokenness and evil has tried to root itself in the world creating hate and disgust.  Which is why God sent his Son Jesus to the world to die and resurrect.  So that we might have an example and an ultimate story of love to point back to when things seem to be only about hate.  There are some key texts that we approach in scripture to create this piece of the vision for our church.  

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. -I John 4:7-12

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. -Acts 2:42-47

God is love and when we are at our best as the church we have everything in common through deep bonds of friendship and relationship because of Christ and the Spirit.

Churches tend to be large groups which make it difficult to connect and build strong relationships together.  The system we at UCC have chosen to provide safe spaces to build these loving relationships is Small Groups.  Over time we hope to add to the number of groups, strengthen each group, and as a church provide better direction for these groups.

God is not isolated...He is three in one.  We should not isolate ourselves either...from one another or the world.  If we are truly joining in chorus together, then we will Resonate as a church and build those loving relationships with one another out of the Love God has for us!

Life isn't easy!  Never has been.  Never will be.  Sometimes I'm guilty of trying to rush through the uneasy or the difficulties of life so I can get to the good life.  And then I am disappointed to find out that life still isn't easy.  Suffering really stinks.  Pain is unpleasant at best.  Darkness is overwhelming at times.  It is absolutely no fun at all to go through the valley of the shadow of death.  And yet we find ourselves there more than we want.  I wish we could lasso the good and capture it for all times.  But the world doesn't work like that.  Jesus promised hardship, Paul boasts about suffering. And believers cannot escape it.  

Bruggeman talks of the Psalms and considers the idea that there are Orientation Psalms, Disorientation Psalms, and Reorientation Psalms.  I think life is much like that.  We are oriented to a certain way of life, disoriented by pain and suffering, and then reoriented when we find reprieve or deliverance.

My hope for my own life is that when I find myself in a time of disorientation, when life isn't easy I will slow down time and call upon God.  I will read his Word more deeply.  My prayers will have greater focus.  My hope is that my pain will not be wasted.  And that my future gain will be a well of worship to the one who carries us through all of life.  

​My God is great!

It is Sunday morning and I don't usually write a blog on Sunday.  However, my preparations for this morning have gone rather quickly and I had time to reflect  and pray. I did a future reflection rather than reflecting on the day previous.  I thought about all that will happen with the class I'm teaching, the sermon I'm preaching, the announcements I'm making, and the interactions I will  have with many different people.  And as I was reflecting on all of these things, this phrase came to me, "Lord, I give myself to Thee."  I realize that is from an old hymn, "All To Jesus I Surrender."  The phrase, even without its song, was a soft reminder to be present this morning.  Sure I knew that I should give myself to my family.  I should give myself to the church.  But sometimes we ministers forget to give ourselves to God first.  So, Lord, I give myself to you this morning!  In the midst of running around doing and giving myself to others in being, I pray that mostly I am giving myself to you.  In my preparations, in my conversations, in my speaking, in my singing, in my facial expressions, and in the depths of my heart.  Thank you for this day to worship you with the body here.

At the beginning of the year I said I wanted to further explain the different pieces to our new vision.  This week I want to share our vision to Elevate.  The full vision title is Elevate:  Inviting ALL to Experience God.  Before our vision covered our individual pursuit for holiness.  However, the leadership of the church wanted to make a statement that God is a God to be worshipped and communally.  We want to do this together as a church that exists right now.  However, we want our worship to God to be open to anyone and everyone.  And we realize that the word, "Worship" has its own connotations that usually have mostly to do with singing.  The idea behind Elevate is that we want our worship to be a gateway to experience the God we come to worship.  

When we decided to be a church that invites all to experience God, we chose the Sunday morning worship service as our main system to reach our vision.  We realize that the way in which we worship is specific to a particular taste or preference.  We worship a cappella. We sing old hymns and newer praise songs, but they are always songs to give God glory.  We "dwell in the word" which is a spiritual exercise where we read the same scripture every Sunday for a year.  We read it twice through and allow pauses in between readings so that people can ponder the word.  We give relevant, applicable messages that share about God and encourage our relationship with Him.  We take the "Lord's Supper" or Communion every Sunday.  We take a cracker that represents the body of Christ and a small cup of juice that represents the blood of Christ.  This practice helps us to celebrate Christ and connect in fellowship.  We take an offering.  The church depends upon the generosity of its members to sustain its ministries and members need the practice of giving to remind themselves to trust in God. So in many ways we look very similar to other American churches.  In some ways look different.  

When we invite ALL to experience God in our worship service it means that we want to create a life-giving worship service.  The life-giving service will not always reach everyone's preference level.  The idea of inviting ALL is that everyone is welcome.  It doesn't matter your race, gender, economic level, political leanings, theological understandings, lifestyle, or past mistakes.  Like Jesus, we want to be in relationship with all kinds of people and introduce you to the Father.

If you find a home with us, we will be overjoyed and we will lead you to the other pieces of the vision.  If you have already claimed UCC as your faith family and place of worship, then we expect that every person who joins us will participate by being a piece of our life-giving worship service and continually invite others to join us.