We have spent a great deal of time trying to hone in on what our message is. Because you see there are plenty of churches out there. And people ask me: why start a new one when there are already so many? But to be honest, my husband and I wanted to start a new church, because there was not a church in NW Ohio that really met the needs of our family. There wasn’t yet the church that wasn’t quite right for our children, our family, our beliefs.
And we knew lots of other people that were not connecting with the existing churches. So we prayed, and listened to God. And God led us to plant this church. To create the Village Church a few years ago.
You see, this is what we discovered. We need HOPE. Other people are looking for HOPE too. Everywhere we turn, people are searching for HOPE. All over, people are trying to fill ourselves up with all sorts of things, because we feel empty inside. What we need is HOPE.
All over the place, people are trying to find a way out of emptiness. We are trying to shop our way out of the emptiness, eat our way out, use drugs, alcohol, or sex; we try to work ourselves out, to find success as a way out of the emptiness but it is still there. The Beatles even sang a song about it: HELP! “Won’t you please help me?”
What we are all searching for is a sense of contentment. We want wholeness. We want to know we are OK, just the way we are. We want healing from the things that ails us. You see we all have some basic sense of discontent. It just seems to be human nature. I don’t know why we don’t feel good enough, or smart enough or rich enough. We always want to be more of something.
Some of us feel this way because something has happened to us and we are hurting. We need to let go. Some of us feel this way because we are just naturally driven. But we all seem to be longing for something we don’t have.
Jesus came into this world to show us, that we can be content, we can be content when we invite God to take the lead in our lives. We can rest easy when we accept the premise that God made us and God loves us just the way we are. God loves us. We don’t have to prove anything. And whatever we have done, or whatever has happened to us, it’s ok. God can make us whole again. God can heal us. Our hope comes, when we accept this healing from God, when we accept God’s love.
The Village is a community where we come together week after week, to find healing, and then to grow HOPE in our world, not just among ourselves, but among other people in our community and world.
We come together to hear the ancient stories and connect them to our lives. Today, we have a great story from scripture about hope and healing (Acts 3:1-11 from The Message for those following along on the Internet). This is actually the first account of some of Jesus’ disciples doing an act of healing, after Jesus was gone, and had left them in charge of the ministry.
Peter and John were going to the temple in to pray. There was a man, who had been crippled from birth. It was customary that men like this would sit by the temple gates to beg for money or food. This man was there every day. I imagine Peter and John had walked by him many times before. But on this day, they stopped.
I think about myself when I read this story, and how I am often so focused on one thing, that I do not stop to see a need that God puts right in front of me. How ironic that they might have been so focussed on going to PRAY, that they could have walked right past one of God’s children in need. (How often does that happen to us?) But the man asked them for money, and they stopped.
Then, the story says, Peter looked the man “straight in the eye.” That’s important. There was a connection. Some how the man got Peter’s attention. The man was hoping for a few coins, so he could buy a little food, and get through another day. This was his routine. This was his life, just getting by, one day at a time.
But Peter was being used as an instrument of God. He had something much more in mind that day. Peter looked at the man and said, ‘I don’t have a nickel to my name, but I’ll give you something better. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And he took the man’s hand and lifted him up and the man who had never walked a day in his life stood up and walked. Not only that but so the story goes, we’re told the man started dancing and praising God! And he went into the Temple telling the story.
Now that is a story of HOPE! That is a story of life restored! Now here is what I LOVE about this story. The man was asking for a few coins. It shows us, that so often, we have learned to settle for so little, but God wants to give us so much more!
Maybe long ago the man had prayed for healing and the ability to walk, but he had given up on that, so he had resigned himself to sit at the Temple gate every day and just beg for a few coins so he could just get some bread to eat, and get enough nourishment to get there the next day and do the whole thing over again.
But Peter and John broke that cycle by using the power of God to give the man so much more. I wonder how many other lives were touched by that one man as he went and told his story to his friends, and witnessed to the healing power of God. This story reminds me of so many people whose lives are touched by God, and because they do not limit the power of God, God uses them to work wonders.
Perhaps you know the story of the young girl named Agnes, born in Albania in 1910. She knew by the time she was 12 years old that she wanted to give herself to a religious life, as a Roman Catholic nun. When she got her calling to serve the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, she faced huge obstacles from the church hierarchy. They did not want her to answer her call. They did not think she could do it. But she persevered. At the time of her death in 1997, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity had grown to include 4000 sisters, operating 610 missions in 123 countries, giving HOPE and comfort to countless people across the world. When she faced obstacles to living out her call, she could have given up, but she did not. She gathered her strength, and got back in there and trusted God to show her the way. She did not give up hope. And God gave her the resources she needed.
When I think of people who overcame great personal tragedy to bring HOPE to others, I also think of Candace Lightner. Her 13 year old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver in 1980. Candace could have stayed at home, broken and grieving for the rest of her life. And who would have blamed her? But instead, Candace founded the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving to advocate for tougher laws for those who drink and then get behind the wheel. She turned her tragedy into healing and HOPE for other families; to make the world a safer place for others. Somewhere along the way, I imagine that God must have used a servant, like God used Peter and John, to reach into Candace Lightner’s sorrow, and to say to her, “Don’t settle into your sorrow. Do SOMETHING to bring HOPE to others.”
Both of these women could have given up. But they did not. They dug deep inside, and found the strength and choose HOPE.
So how about you? Now, we may not all have something from which we need to be healed that is extreme as the man who was crippled from birth, or the woman whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver. We may not all have to stand up to a powerful institution in order to live out our calling.
But I would venture to say that we all need help or healing from something. Because, as we know, there are no perfect people. We are all flawed, injured, or challenged in some way. We all have something to get beyond, so that we can live into the joyful, whole life God wants for us. God wants joy for us.
We find our HOPE, when we can find healing, or acceptance, or come to terms with these flaws or set-backs in our lives, and move on.
We all have some sort of brokenness: whether it is an injury, or some sort of self doubt, a loss, or regret. We might not even be able to name our deepest need, like the man in the Bible story for today. We might be asking for a hand out to get by today, when God is ready to help us stand up on our own two feet and dance. We may have forgotten what our real hope is – because it has been so long! That’s ok too. God knows our hearts. God can set us free.
So Today, in response to this story, I want to invite each of us to respond to this story today, by asking for prayer for healing. I want to challenge you to take a step forward into the life God has laid out for you. We’re going to do this in a simple and concrete way.
In worship some of your Village friends, who are comfortable praying for you have volunteered to be around the worship space. I invited people to go walk up to them, and ask for prayer. It did not have to be complicated.
For those following along at home or on the road, you can do this by commenting on this blog or emailing Cheri (or Kurt). You can just say: “I want prayer for healing, or for strength.” Or you can name the thing you want healing for. And we are going to pray for you. We will ask God to bring hope and healing to your life situation.
Because here is the thing: there is power in praying together in community. We bring hope to one another. When we name our brokenness out loud, and ask God to heal us, God will heal us, in some way. It may not always be in the way we expect, but I do believe God will bring us healing in some way.
You see, God is our HOPE. And God wants to bring hope to our broken lives. So take some time now to listen to your own heart. Ask yourself “what do I truly need to let go of? From what do I need to be healed?” If you want to do this face to face, we’re here every Sunday at 10:30 at the Maumee Indoor Theater (the corner of Conant Street and the Anthony Wayne Trail). We’re imperfect, broken people, but together we have Hope and we can change the world.
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