Assistant Rector's Message

During the vestry retreat I was reminded of a conversation I had a few years ago with an elderly gentlemen while I was serving as a chaplain at Pomerado Hospital. During the course of our conversation he informed me that thirty years ago he had stopped attending church. He said that when he was going through a difficult time in his life, after the death of his mother, the members of his church turned their backs on him and ignored him. He felt depressed and completely alone. He then made the decision to stop attending church, because he felt the church was filled with hypocrites, who constantly talked about love, but failed to actually demonstrate it.

The conversation reminded me that a true faith in God is something that is visible by all. It is displayed in our expression of love for God and our neighbors. When we fail to show the love of God to others, we are truly deceiving ourselves, because faith is more than saying that we believe in God. Faith is manifested in our actions and caring for one another. We have been called to spread the gospel message and to share the love of God. We cannot claim to be disciples of Christ if we don't model our lives after him.

Rector's Message

CRYING OUT TO GOD, or prayer as it is sometimes also known, is a biblical principle that is repeated all throughout scripture. We see kings, priests, prophets, slaves, soldiers, shepherds, merchants and even pagans (remember Nineveh and Jonah?) cry out to God, finding Him strong to save and deliver. During this Lenten season, I will be leading a course on prayer as part of the Centerpoint Wednesday evening series.

This class is designed to teach us how to seek the Lord in earnest, for help in the day of trouble and to seek His face for wisdom and guidance in times of need. From the Book of Joel we will learn the divine strategy and how to respond when we encounter a day of trouble and judgment from God. The prophet calls the nation Israel into a season of fasting, prayer and "crying out to God"; the gathering of solemn assemblies to seek God's mercy and pardon. We can learn much from this chapter in Israel's history.

From the Assistant Rector

The season of Lent is now upon us, and we once again have the opportunity through prayer, fasting, and worship to enter into the saving events of Holy Week. Lent recalls Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness as he prepared for his ministry in the world. As Christians we are called to follow his example as we enter into this season of reflection and prayer.

Over these next couple of weeks we are encouraged to look inwardly and closely examine ourselves and our relationship with God. We will reflect on the things in our lives that hinder and prevent us from growing closer to God. We are encouraged to uncover the areas in our lives that need changing through the healing power of the Holy Spirit. Lent is the time for us to seek God's mercy and ask for his forgiveness for things we have done and things we have left undone. To examine what it truly means to be a disciple of Jesus and how we live that out in our everyday lives.

Awesome is a word that is frequently overused. It has as its root, awe meaning "an overwhelming feeling of wonder or admiration" or "fear: a feeling of profound respect for someone or something" as in "the fear of God." The suffix -some is merely the way some nouns are transformed into adjectives, as in "characterized by a specified quality, condition, or action." Hence, awesome is a word that should be reserved for an unusually tremendous occurrence or feeling, which has to do with being overwhelmed, particularly by an experience of God.

I just had an AWESOME weekend; I was at YouthQuake!