The Power to Live Simply and Give Generously by Kurt Young & Cheri Holdridge

Here at The Village we want to change the world. Often, that task becomes overwhelming. Just last week, we talked about the task of caring for creation, and what a mess the world is in. And how overwhelming it can be to think about the environment, and the fact that God made us care-takers of this world. We watched a funny clip from a movie about taking baby steps and we reflected on simple steps we might take as individuals to make a difference in the world.




Our Village Kids Leader, Jess Lucero, introduced Cheri to this great video, called “The
Girl Effect,” which introduces a great idea, that again simplifies a huge concept. It takes this global idea of changing the world, and breaks it down into simple actions that we can do that can affect change, that can build momentum over time, to create large movements of transformation. The point of the video is that a small effort, getting a third world girl the uniform to go to school or money to buy her family a cow to sell milk, can change the whole world if we all take on one girl.

Now, a local church, might take up an offering to provide school uniforms, or to provide teachers in a village; especially for girls in a place where there are only schools for boys. Or someone might buy a cow through the Heifer Project, International, which specializes in getting animals to villages which can produce a sustainable food source, like chickens for eggs, or goats or dairy cows for milk. There is another great project that provides mosquito nets to prevent malaria. Preventing disease spread through mosquitos is a huge life transforming initiative. These nets cost $10 apiece and each one can save a life.

But wait. Here is the problem. There are lots of good places to give, but money is tight.
It’s a bad economy out there. We don’t have much to give. And so these days, especially, our charities, are struggling. Those who depend upon the generosity of others, are hurting even more. Programs are being cut. Shelves at food pantries are bare. People are getting desperate. And why? Because we are afraid. We are afraid we don’t have enough to go around.

Well friends, when Cheri & I get scared, we ask God for help, and we turn to the Bible,
because in the Bible I find stories of other people, who have gone before me, who have gotten scared & turned to God for help in times of trouble. This week in worship we read a story from Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 8:1-7 for those reading along at home.
We find this story about Paul encouraging a new young church in Corinth, a tiny little
new church start, like The Village, in the ancient city of Corinth. The folks in Corinth were more wealthy than the church in Macedonia. Paul was encouraging the folks in Corinth to be generous like the folks in Macedonia. Paul raised up the church in Macedonia as a model. Out of their poverty, they begged for the privilege of sharing in the ministry. Can you imagine poor people begging to help others?

The Macedonians were poor and yet they were generous. They wanted to help others. Research shows that Christians at lower income levels, give more per capita than Christians of higher income levels. Why? Perhaps they understand this concept of living simply and being more generous.

Pastor Adam Hamilton writes: “The more we have, the more we waste.” Cheri found an
envelope with $80 in our living room the other day. Do you think a poor person would ever just leave an envelope with $80 lying around? And not know where it came from? We don’t think we are rich. Really we don’t. But we are rich. Really I think it’s Cheri’s Mom’s. She’s 80. She probably forgot she left it there. But she says she does not remember leaving it there, so it’s ours now.

For Cheri’s sermon we were trying to think of something we are extravagant about in our spending. Cheri and I were eating lunch at Subway the other day. Cheri said, “I need an example.” I said, “Well, we know that the biggest part of our extra spending, our discretionary spending – that stuff that we COULD give up if we had to – goes for eating out and vacations.”
“Yeah,” Cheri said, “I could go on our Quicken account and see how much we spent the past few months on eating out. I think it would be scary.” I quickly tried to change the subject, “how about that US Men’s Soccer Team?”.

As I feared, Cheri went and opened up Quicken, and looked at a couple of random
months. We spent roughly $600 on changing the world and $750 on eating out. We can justify that until we are both blue in the face (e.g. we both work hard at jobs that change the world and are too tired or busy to cook some nights, we have kids with activities to get to, etc). But here is the truth, we are appalled. We don’t want to spend more money going out to eat than we spend on changing the world. That’s the bottom line.

Cheri and I (especially Cheri who does our budget and bills) have worked really hard to
pay off some bad consumer debt that we had racked up, in the past years while she worked 50 hours a week at conference minimum salary to turn another church around. We don’t do a lot of unnecessary shopping. And so when something comes along that we care about, we can make a contribution. Not a huge one, but we can write a check and that feels good. We like to be generous. Cheri likes living more simply so that we can be more generous. But we want to be more generous. And we are appalled that we are spending more on eating out, that we are giving away to change the world.

But I did not know we were doing that, until Cheri decided to take a look. You see, one
of the things we do, when we decide to follow Jesus, is to look at every corner of our lives, and consider whether it lines up with how we want to live as followers of Jesus. Jim Wallis puts it this way about finances, “budgets are moral documents” whether they are for governments, corporations, or people. And we have to confess to you, that we want to live simply so that we can be generous. And eating out so much, that we spend more on eating out, than we can give to organizations like The Village, and Equality Toledo, and the MS Society and whatever else, to change the world – well that just does not cut it for us – as a followers of Jesus.

How about you? The Spirit is asking us, where can we simplify our lives so that we can
live more generously. We think one of the reasons we fail to be generous, is because we are afraid we won’t have enough. Cheri asked Wendell to tell us a story this morning in worship because he told her his story and it’s a great one, of him overcoming his fear, to be generous.

Wendell is a teacher at the University of Toledo. Part of being a professor is that you don’t get paid for three months each summer. You have to save all year to get the money to pay your bills, the mortgage, etc during that time. Wendell found a problem this year. No matter what he did, things got in his way. His parents wanted to come visit and it cost him a great deal of money. He was in the process of refinancing his mortgage to get a lower payment when he was told he would need to bring $2,300 to the closing. His car started having problems. Then another’s need came before him.

A student, Christie, needed help. She is a young mom, with a husband who was hurt. She needed financial help. All Wendell could think of was the fact that he did not have enough to get him through the lean time. He felt too much need for himself. God persisted in his prayer time, each day, calling on him to “bless Christie the way he had been blessed”. Blessed was the last thing Wendell was feeling financially. Finally, Wendell, listened to the voice of God and helped a student in need and in an amount larger than he thought he would have ever given. It was then that the mortgage broker called to say that the numbers he gave Wendell were wrong. He did not need to bring $2,300 to the closing but $300. So, despite the generosity, and because of his conscious effort throughout the year, Wendell helped a person in need, brought his parents to visit, fixed his car, and paid his new mortgage past when he next gets paid.

As you approach your finances, especially in this time of need, make a plan. Make it something that can be chopped up into small steps, the baby steps we talked about last week, and then make it happen. Find your small steps and make them happen. You’ll be surprised as the changes you make, change your world and the rest of the world for the better.

WIND (SPIRIT) POWER: THE POWER TO CARE FOR CREATION

Our family loves to go to the beach. It was something Cheri & I loved before we found each other. This summer, we’re going to a new beach, Rehobeth Beach in Delaware. Before we found each other, Cheri used to go to Panama City, Florida, and Sunset Beach in North Carolina. I used to go with friends or family to Nags Head in North Carolina. Since we added kids we go to Saugatuck in Michigan. While the rest of you suffered through a blizzard a few years ago, Cheri & I were on Miami Beach, sorry.

It restores our souls to go to the beach. We try to get there every summer, and if possible in February as well, Cheri and gloomy, cold Februarys don’t get along. Maybe you like the mountains, plenty of people enjoy that. Others love fishing on a lake or sailing. Some of us enjoy long cycle rides. Maybe your thing is gardening. Cheri gets a little “mini-connection” to God’s creation by taking a walk in a garden or working on one. I just get environmental allergies, so . . .

Connecting to creation is the point. Because God created this world for us. And God gave it to us as a gift. It restores our souls to connect to this creation, in our own ways. But God also gave us a responsibility. To make sure it was there and took, it’s in the FIRST Chapter of the FIRST Book of the Bible. In Genesis, Chapter 1 we are given the job of caring for creation. Stewardship is the old school, church word for this. We are given Stewardship of all of God’s creation, to use it wisely, and it is good, as the Message Translation says “So very good”.

Then, something awful happens like the Deep Horizon Oil Well Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, that explodes and burns and bursts and starts spewing so much oil into the ocean. So much oil we can’t even get an accurate measurement of it (10,000 Barrels, 20,000 Barrels, 60,000 barrels a day). And one attempt, after another (Containment Vessel, Top Hat 1, Top Kill, Top Hat 2, etc) fails, days and weeks go by. Eleven Human lives were lost on day one, and countless lives will be lost later as workers get sick from cleaning the mess. Next we see vegetation and animals, and food sources, and marshes, and jobs and beautiful coast lands are affected. And still the oil is pouring into the ocean and moving towards almost all of the beautiful beaches named above, and so on.

And I turn back to the scripture this week “Take charge! Be responsible for every living thing that moves on the Earth”. Hmm . . . If we humans are responsible for every living thing, well, we have failed, haven’t we? A big, fat, enormous “F” on this one.

And it’s easy to point fingers. Cheri watched several mornings on CNN as “that guy” as she calls him, Tony Hayward, the guy who is the CEO and in charge of the clean up until this last week, appeared. Every morning he appeared with John Roberts and I swear they got him ready by taking him into a room, putting a helmet and shoulder pads on him and hitting him repeatedly with a baseball bat. Because that’s what the press is doing to him, he had no answers and took no real ownership of the mess, and we wish that he didn’t have the pads on, don’t we? Or maybe they had something more painful than a baseball bat. They made horrible mistakes to get us there and they have no answers.

Still others blame the President for not having a way to cap a flow of oil gushing out so hard it would fling a bulldozer into the air in a place where no human can go. Or, the nameless, faceless SOMEONE, who should be able to fix this. There’s blame out there alright and maybe plenty to go around.

Now, of course, we can get mad at BP specifically, or the oil industry in general, or corporate greed & Wall Steet, or the Government, etc. and make the scape goats. But, most of us drive cars or ride buses don’t we? We have some kind of plastic gadgets or bottles in our possession, right now? I sure do with one strapped to my belt and one I’m typing on now. So we are participate in this. We are all dependant upon oil. We are part of a system that makes those “evil” oil companies desperate to dig deeper and deeper wells in the ocean, at depths where indeed the oil comes out as such a great pressure it would fling bulldozers into the air and keep it up there and depths where only specially designed robots can go. Sure, maybe they are greedy, but we still need more oil because we have a system that is not sustainable. And we know it.

And friends, this is just one part of that unsustainable system. It’s a very big, and very timely, part of this system. But it’s just one thing.

We’ve heard this message for years. In the 1970's we got a look at the fragile little ball that sustains us, the Earth, from space and the environmental movement took fire. And modern prophet after prophet has tried to tell us. Folks like Al Gore are called every name in the book, “Captain Plan Nut”, “tree hugger”, “fear monger”, etc. The science is called into question, etc. Ok, sure, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” did win an Academy award, and his group with the UN did win the Noble Peace Prize, but don’t tell me it didn’t cost him (the presidency among other things) and others dearly. Lots of us don’t want to hear it. And it’s not just the “Right”.

Again, there is a religious word again for what we are called to do and it’s called Stewardship. Most people hear stewardship and they think it’s about money. No, it’s about using the resources we have been given wisely. It’s about using money, true, but it’s also about using water, and trees, and minerals, etc wisely. Again, this is in BOOK ONE, CHAPTER ONE of the Bible. God gives us this as “Job One”. How are we doing? If you’re answer is anything but LOUSY, you’re kidding yourself.

When we pause and let this all sink in, the problem, and the task ahead is overwhelming. Cheri took a test on our use of resources, and found out that if we are the norm, and we’re actually only slightly better than the norm, we are going to use up 3 ½ times the Earth’s resources. Now, again, we got ONE Earth, but we’re going to chew it up and spit it out. We’ve got some changes to make.

Whew! That’s overwhelming, depressing, way too heavy, right? Well, in worship, we broke this up with a little comedy to introduce the solution. We showed an old, funny movie, “What About Bob”. Bill Murray plays Bob. He’s got really huge problems. Richard Dreyfus is a psychologist who is given the job of “fixing” him. The scene include Richard Dreyfus saying: wait a minute now, you’re a multi-phobic person who is almost paralyzed by fear and you’re saying you dumped your wife because she likes Neil Diamond too much?

Richard Dreyfus introduces Bob to his new book, which he hopes will be a best seller, and for which he dutifully bills Bob the $29.99 cover price “Baby Steps”. Bob, as he does throughout the movie, misunderstands, and misapplies the lesson, taking actual baby steps as he leaves the office. But, the message is a good one. Take small, realistic, sustainable steps to fix a larger, seemingly overwhelming problem.

I think that in order for us to become better stewards for God, and reclaim our power to care for creation, we are going to have to start with some “baby steps”. We didn’t get into this mess in the last few months, or years or decades even. We are NOT going to fix this overnight either. But we have to make some changes. Because you see, we mean it when we say every week in worship that “we are followers of Jesus and WE ARE going to change the world”. Our actions have to be consistent in all areas of our life, including how we care for this beautiful planet we have been entrusted with.

Cheri found the baby steps clip at her training for how to plant The Village. That’s an enormous, often overwhelming undertaking too. But you need to, just like we are, take multiple, easy to achieve steps, to tackle a large problem.

There are lots of things we, mere mortals, can do to reduce our impact on this planet and be better stewards of it’s gifts. Here’s just a small sample of “baby steps” you can take:

Turn off lights you are not using and unplug electronic devices and chargers when not in use.

Use CFL’s (Compact Florescent Light Bulbs), those funny little lights that use a whole lot less electricity & last longer. (And yes, you have to dispose of them properly when they’re done as they have issues too).

Use less hot water by using cold water detergents and taking shorter showers

Fix leaks and never let the water run

Don’t buy those plastic bottles of water, get a re-useable water bottle, we’ll give you one.

Ride your bike or walk on trips where a car is not really needed

Check your tire pressure in your car.

These steps not only will help the Earth, they actually will lower your Gas, Natural Gas, Electric and Food bills. And they’re easy steps to start doing. Pick one, accomplish it, and then movement. You don’t have to plug this leak yourself. So far, no one has found the magic formula on that.

Let’s start with the little steps. As our one song in the service said “let what we do in here, fill the streets out there”. Let us follow Jesus and change the world, because we are the Village Church and we can, by baby steps, change the world. If you want to help, join us on Sundays at 10:30, or via the web.

WIND (SPIRIT) POWER: THE POWER TO WORSHIP

Habits are powerful. That’s true of good ones e.g. exercise, eating right, praying, etc. And it’s true of bad ones, “Hi, I’m Kurt, and I’m a nicotine addict. It’s been 20 years, this month, since my last cigarette”. It’s easy to start the bad ones. It’s hard to start and maintain the good ones. I have started and abandoned countless journals. I have gained and lost my body weight several times over.

Good habits and bad ones are tied together. The good habits can crowd out the bad. I got to see that happen first hand at a former church of ours in Findlay, Christ Church United Methodist. There, we had a friend Roger, who used one good habit to crowd out one really bad habit. You see, Roger was an alcoholic. He had been a married, upper middle class guy. He had been a CEO. But Roger had drunk his way out of all that.

But many years ago, Roger discovered Christ Church via a New Years Eve Service we had. Now, let me tell you, we almost cancelled that service. It was not very well attended, there were something like 10-20 people there the night Roger came. It really strained Cheri and I and all who put it on. But, Roger made the choice to join us that night. Then, he stared coming to Sunday School on a regular basis.

In that Sunday School Class, Roger found a home. He found acceptance, he found peace with God, and he found a way to push out a bad habit. But that was always a choice. Roger’s way to Christ Church was actually filled with a real world decision each time. You see, Roger’s favorite alcohol source was a carry-out, directly across the street from Christ Church. The right turn (no, I swear I’m not making this up) was into Christ Church and the left was into the carry-out. Staring with that New Year’s Eve service, Roger made the right turn.

Roger later succumb to the damage that years of abuse caused, he died sober and loved by a small group of people, our Sunday School Class. But with all the joy of his turn around that I feel, comes a great sadness for me.

It’s not with the passing of Roger. We all die, and I’m sure ,beyond any doubt that Roger is in a place of acceptance, healing and love. No, I’m sadden by the fact that Roger never crossed the building and joined us in worship on a Sunday. Roger felt unworthy to come into the Sunday morning worship service as all he had to wear were sweat pants and t-shirts. Each week he came, read the Bible, share his life with us, but quickly left without coming into the sanctuary. He left without joining the larger body of the church.

Let me make this clear, NO ONE at Christ Church ever overtly made Roger feel unwelcome. Christ Church is a wonderful, mainline Methodist church. But, they dressed up for church. Not a sinful thing, not a disrespectful thing. They were showing their respect for God, in their minds, in the way they dressed. They also made those in the circle very welcome. But Roger was not in the circle.

As a group of us founded a second worship service, the Backdoor Coffee House, where Roger would have been welcomed to come as he was and be among friends, we remembered Roger. Every time I get frustrated, tired and ready to give up at a church, I try to remember Roger. I do not want any other Rogers to feel excluded from that circle of worship ever again.

For me, welcome to the worship circle hits close to home. I gave up on worship around the age of eighteen, which means I gave up on church. Church took time away from political campaigning, from fund raising walks and rides, from blood drives, in other words it took away from “saving the world”. I never gave up on God and I know God doesn’t give up on me, but worship was a boring, waste of time. It took dating a Pastor (an evangelism technique I now frown up for some reason, at least until we get a single associate pastor at the Village) to get me in the doors of a church.

But, when I came back, at Christ Church, I discovered something about worship done right. God comes to us in worship. The story from the Bible we used this week in worship, from the Book of Chronicles says it best “if you seek God, God will be found by you, but if you abandon God, God will abandon you”. Asa in the story repairs the temple altar and puts away the abominable idols of his culture. Imagine that a society with bad idols (greed, anger, etc). I’ve never hard of such a thing.

Augustine, a great Christian writer & leader, said it best, “our hearts are restless until we rest in God”. Boy are we restless today. Today, some of that is good. Bettering ourselves & the world is somewhat restless. But, there is a lot of bad restlessness out there. We feel like we have to buy or earn our way into feeling safe, secure, rested. We enter into bad relationships, hang out with the wrong people to feel at ease. We use drugs & alcohol to try to bring us that rest. We think we can fill our spaces with things.

For me, worship done right is where I refresh, recharge, reconnect and recommit. I still don’t speak (and I consider music style a language) “praise music”. I don’t think the all powerful, creator of the universe, the God of Issac & Abraham & David & Jesus & Martin Luther King, Jr needs to hear from me how great God is. I am an insignificant creature, at an insignificant time, on an insignificant world. But, Cheri has been trying to get me to hear, it’s about me hearing that about God. God is great, God is powerful and God wants to have a relationship with me. Slowly, but surely, I find myself tolerating more praise music in the mix of songs we sing at the Village.

To be a follower of Christ is a team sport. Jesus didn’t mentor a disciple, but a team. It is also a contact sport. Going against the grain of our society, that says it’s all about each of us getting what we want, rather than us all getting what we need, is a contact sport. Jesus spent a lot of time in trouble with the powers that be. And we find ourselves in the same lot. Whether we are liberals or conservatives in our political and theological views, we will tick off the mainstream of faith and of society. Jesus did. Worship is where we join up with the rest of the team.

In the next few months, right after Labor Day, we will be launching a new worship service at the Village. It will be located in the Village Commons (our current worship space) and will be on Sunday as well. But it will be with a different style and with different people attending. Six to twelve months later, worship service number three will be launched. This world needs multiple places to refresh, recharge, reconnect and recommit to a message that God loves us and we need to love each other and make the world a better place. And that’s what the Village is about.

So, do you have a place like this for yourself? If you do, great. Pray for those who don’t and for us as we continue to expand our circle. If you don’t have such a home, find one. There are great faith communities like that all over the country, including one at the corner of Central & Monroe Street. We’re together Sundays at 10:30, and in a few months later as well. If you have ideas, talents, gifts to share, contact Cheri at cheri@villagohio.org. May the great and wonderful love of God crowd out the bad things of this world this week.

WIND (SPIRIT) POWER: POWER OF PRAYER by Cheri Holdridge

Saturday I was a little stressed. That’s when I got a text message from Joe Woods, our band leader. He was calling to find out what time he was supposed to play for our Old West End Free Store Concert. Joe was just trying to add another gig, but to me, without the context of tone, body language, etc, it seemed to me that he was trying to back out of playing, at one of our key outreach events, something that had been on the Calendar for months (Kurt says a year). I got even more stressed. Joe laughed, literally LOL and "center yourself.". Joe "got it.". You know you’re in trouble when at 47 years of age, and 20 years as a Pastor, your 24 year old band leader has to remind you to get centered and pray.

When Joe and I started working together I asked him to bring in a CD of one of his favorite songs and this is the one he brought in. It's a "centering song”, “Aqueous Transmission" by Incubus (here’s a link to rendition on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlLCXiG4eD4 ). The song reminds me of the summer I call my Sabbath Summer. It was a turning point in my prayer life. In the summer of 2005 my life changed forever.

Experience unlike any other. Perhaps you could call it, my own version of that Pentecost we talked about last week, when the Spirit of God filled Peter and the disciples of Jesus, and it felt like fire and wind and they were filled with so much power that the sermon he preached that cause caused 3000 people to give their lives to Jesus and be baptized! I spent hours in the summer and well into the Fall of 2005, sitting on my front porch with God, praying, and having my own little Pentecost revival.

There had been many times in my life before when I had gone through short periods of disciplined prayer routine - and those were meaningful times in my life as well. It's all good.

But something was deeper that summer. I was ready. Perhaps I needed God more. Or I was just at a level of maturity in my life to receive God's Spirit. Who can explain the things of the Spirit? It's beyond human wisdom. But here's what happened.

I sat on my porch every night, with The Message Bible, my journal, and pen, first a book called Sabbath, by Wayne Muller, and later a book called Mother Tongue by Paul Nixon, and every night I opened my heart and soul to God in prayer. I spent some TIME with God. I poured out my heart to God. I got angry. I laughed. I read scripture. I wrote in my journal. In the mornings I took some walks in my neighborhood, and just tried to clear my mind of my thoughts and listen to God.

It was during that time that I began to hear God's call to plant this church. I was not in a very good place with my last church, because my work there was winding down but I could not see it and I did not want to see it. The time in prayer gave me the space to SEE what I was not seeing. It created space for God to show me a new vision for my life. I am not a patient person. I knew it would take awhile to get here. Five YEARS to get here. That did not make me happy back then. I was not sure how long it would take or how I was going to get there. All the more reason why I needed those weeks and months of going deep with God in prayer.

So why am I telling you all this today? Because I want each one of you to find God's wonderful purpose for your life. There might be more than one. But I want you to see the wonderful vision God has in mind for you next. And I believe the way for you to see it, is for you to connect to God in prayer. There are lots of ways to connect to God in prayer - your way may not be my way. Hear that clearly. There are soooo many ways to pray, soooo many ways to listen to God, and to see and hear God. But in order to hear God we do have to be intentional; and put some time and effort into it.

Like any relationship, a relationship with God, means we carve out TIME, and SPACE. That is clear in our scripture for today.

38-39Peter said, "Change your life. Turn to God and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, so your sins are forgiven. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is targeted to you and your children, but also to all who are far away-whomever, in fact, our Master God invites."
40Peter went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, "Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!"
41-42That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.

We also know from reading the Gospels that Jesus routinely took breaks from the crowds to go away to a quiet place to pray. He could not do his work without the rhythm of prayer and quiet to center himself and to have his spirit filled by God's Spirit.

Many of you have told me that you want something more for your life. Either you have something you want to change - or you are still trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up - whatever age you are.

Others of us are just ready to change the world. We are watching as our planet in hemorrhaging, seen that for the last month. We are seeing the results of corporate greed. Robin has her pictures of her fallen comrades from Iraq. A church like ours, that wants to follow Jesus and change the world - well, we have our work cut out for us. The world is eager to hear our message of hope. We NEED to be grounded in prayer. We NEED to be talking to God, because these world problems are huge. They are too big for any small group of people to face alone - this will take the power of God working through us to conquer. But remember how powerful Peter became when the Spirit of God was in him. That's the Spirit that is in us too! That's the Spirit that can change the world through us when we pray. I want that Spirit in all of us.

So, what will your next step be?

I imagine that all of us pray in some way. If nothing else, we probably ask God for help now and then when we are in trouble, “God help me”. That's a start - at least we know that God wants to help us. Maybe we also say thank you once a day - that's another simple and important prayer practice. I do that with Jamie every night.

If we want to grow as followers of Jesus and our prayer life - and I'm going to assume you want to grow - since you are here today - then I'm going to challenge each of us to make one commitment to deepen our prayer life today.

" Listen to God
" Meet once a week with prayer partner
" Go on a retreat
" Use a prayer book as a guide
" Read scripture
" Read a daily devotional

The Last Seventeen Cents by Jennifer Atkins

We've been working with a local organization called The Village for a while. We rented some space in a not-so-nice neighborhood about nine months ago with some lofty ideals about changing the world or some such thing. This is really rather daunting, but I suppose you have to start somewhere. So you put a stake in the ground and say "here, is where we start."

There's a lot more back story to this endeavor, but I want to share one little bit with you.

Today, we had a free parking lot party. Tim did a lot of the planning so we rolled in about an hour before the official start time to set up grills and do whatever needs to be done to have a cook out in a parking lot. Miraculously, it stopped raining long enough for this to happen. (It's rained enough that I saw a mushroom the size of a hubcap today. I may grow gills.)

Our South Korean friend arrived just before we did. He saw a man near the intersection for the highway ramp and the main road. He picked up the man and brought him along. Everything he owned, presumably, was in a rolled up pack about the size of a small pillow. He wasn't unkempt, but he was homeless and ragged, so a certain amount of unkempt goes with the territory. He helped unload grills and carry things. He stayed with us nearly all afternoon eating hamburgers, drinking orange Kool Aid and listening to music. Someone said he was trying to get to Pontiac, Michigan.

As I stood behind the food tables to refill bowls of chips or whatever, I saw him slowly approach the table. We had some flyer's down at the end that we were holding down with a small change bank (like the ones you use for spare change during Lent.) The party was free but a few folks had jammed some bills in the coin slot on the top of the can. They didn't need to, but it was nice anyway. The man refilled his water bottle from the orange Kool Aid container and then reached into the little pocket on his jeans. You know the pocket- the little one in the front that makes them five pocket jeans. He pulled out a few coins. From the looks of him, I have to imagine this is about all he had.

He took a silver coin and some pennies and another coin, maybe a dime, and he put them in the can. He walked away slowly. I saw him a few minutes later on the other side of the building lighting a cigarette and then he was gone. Off to Pontiac I guess.

He didn't need to give us his money. For that matter, our friend didn't need to have picked him up. But he got picked up and he fished in his pockets for coins for the can. Do I ever give that much? Do I ever reach into my pockets and rummage through the last few coins that I have and willingly and cheerfully give them away? Am I that generous with my time? Am I that generous with my talents and spirit that even when I'm pretty sure I have nearly nothing left, I give just a little bit more away?

Well Sir, I don't know who you are, but what you did will stay with me forever. I hope you made it to Pontiac, Michigan. Thank you for coming to our picnic.

That sums up why we are here.

WIND POWER: WE HAVE THE POWER

This week in worship we read the story from Acts 2 of Pentecost. A little background for those of you who are not familiar, Pentecost was already a minor Jewish Feast. Jews from around the world came to Jerusalem for this celebration, 50 days after Passover. The Disciples, Jesus’ inner circle, were trying to figure out what now. Just about 50 days ago, their leader, Jesus, had been taken from them, violently. While he did rise from the dead, he was only occasionally reappearing. They were not sure what to do now. But, WOW, God sure did and God showed God’s presence that day.

The Holy Spirit, God’s presence in the world, came to the Disciples. The scripture describes it as a strong wind, a gale from nowhere. It was a force that filled the building. The Disciples were filled with a passion, a fire that spread like wildfire. They were put on fire for God.

The Assembled Jews, were from dozens of countries from around the area. They spoke dozens of languages. But as the Disciples spoke, they each heard them in their own language. Imagine, being at an international gathering, where everyone spoke in your language, but your neighbor heard them in their language too. Peter spoke to the crowd with a passion and a skill that few had seen out of him before. If the church has a birthday. This is it.

When you hear Christians talking about being on fire, filled with the Spirit, etc. This is where it came from. This is where the fuel to spread the good news or Gospel, came from. This is where the fuel for the movement to abolish slavery came from. This is the fire that fueled the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement, etc. came from. From here, a few dozen followers became a few thousand in one day, and millions in the years that followed.

Imagine a movement, a great movement, premised on a great idea, but led by a screw up. Yes, I called Peter a screw up. The “Rock”, the man upon whom the post-Jesus church was built was a screw up. Look at what the Gospels (the four books of the new Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) say about Peter.

He was personally mentored by Jesus. He heard the words of Jesus first hand, not in a Sunday School class from another person; not in print, but from the man himself. Did he get it? NO!!!! Repeatedly Jesus tried to teach the Disciples in general, and Peter in particular a lesson. I can see Jesus shaking his head repeatedly. I am sure the human part of Jesus wondered whether they were ever going to get it.

Then, on the night of Jesus’ betrayal, Peter really screwed up. Jesus repeatedly taught love your enemies, do kindness to those who would harm you. When the chips are down, when the High Priests mob & Judas show up to snatch up Jesus, what does Peter do? He whips out his sword and lops off an ear. Jesus has to back Peter down and heal the wounded. So much for loving the enemy. Also, even after Jesus warns him about denying Jesus three times when he is pressured, Peter does just that. This is the “Rock upon which the church is to be built?”. The foundation of a movement? The new leader to take Jesus’ place as the head of the church?
But, then you add the power of the Spirit. Now, you’ve got something. Imagine adding skill to passion, God did both with Peter. BAM, 3,000 converts in a day, that’s right, the equivalent of a Mega-Church in one day. A wildfire is born that will spread across the world, bringing down the most powerful empire of the day and transforming history.

Once at The Village when we were talking about what we are passionate about, what is that thing in the world that we would do anything to change, Tianda said she wanted there to be a world where there are no “throw away children”. She wants every child to feel they are worth something. Cheri wants every child to live with the joy in the picture from our theme slide. With freedom and love and that almost wreck-less abandon that comes from knowing that one is safe and loved no matter what.

Cheri was reading a devotional this week. In the devotional, believed written by Eberhard Arnold, the author wrote that the dwelling place of God in our world belongs to children. God’s home is where children live. People with a childlike spirit are the ones that are the closest to God. Not childish, or immature, but what he calls a spirit of “confident trust” and a spirit that rejoices and loses itself in the object of its love: a spirit that is released from self-contemplation. The true child is never afraid. And this is why. Because the childlike spirit comes from the Holy Spirit. So, he writes “let us believe that this Spirit really exists and that we can receive it”.

So, where are we in Peter’s story? Are we ready to receive the Spirit? Our friend Laurie Swyers has just returned to church. Her friends, worriedly asked her “are you one of those holy rollers now?” So, she knows this moment. The question is whether to become Peter in the court yard or Peter on Pentecost. So, which would you be?

There are hurting folks out there, right. We’ve seen it time and time again. They need places where love is; where acceptance is. Just yesterday we experienced a little of that. Dozens of people dropped by our church parking lot when we did the simple act of playing some music and cooking some food. We had a homeless man stop by. We had residents of a group home. We hadd single moms, families, single people, gays, lesbians, transgendered, straight, immigrants, etc. We offered some basic hospitality and 85 people came by.

I think Eberard Arnold is onto something when he says in order to make a home for God’s spirit in our lives, we need to be more like children, we need to find that simple trust and courage to put our trust in something outside ourselves; to give ourselves into the freedom to trust goodness and joy.

There is power, friends, the message that good is stronger than evil; and compassion is a better way than selfishness. It really is that simple. And it really is that powerful. Children, in their purest, unrestrained form, get that. And they can teach us.

That’s what happened on the first Pentecost. The people were filled with God’s Spirit of Love. Some crazy miracle happened so that the preaching was simultaneously in the languages of the people from all sorts of countries. Words spoken by a bunch of simple, uneducated and not multilingual Galileans became a powerful message that transformed the world. That was the miracle of the day. The message that God loved us so much, God came and lived among us, died like us and rose from the dead, was given so much power, it had to spread around the world. The crowd was called by the former screw up, Peter, to “get out of this sick and stupid culture”. Then? The culture was sick and stupid then? We thought we only had that now.

Peter said that and the people at Pentecost listened and 3,000 of them left it behind. They committed themselves to the teachings of the disciples, the life of following Christ together, the common meal, and prayer. We had a little taste of that last night.

Like Pentecost, we had a big party for everyone. Our party included the homeless and affluent, suburban families; farmers and lawyers; Democrats and Republicans; the young and the old; the able bodied and the mentally and physically disabled; those without a high school diploma and several with multiple doctoral degrees. A group of people who would normally not be together were together in the same place for a couple of hours. They worked together, eat together and experienced God’s love together. You’ve got to think that made God smile Yesterday.

You see, our world is pretty broken right now; racism (yes, it’s alive and well), a broken economy; political division. People tend to socialize with folks like them. But we had lots of different folks working together. The church of Jesus is supposed to be one place where the Holy Spirit has the power to draw together we who are very different. It isn’t always true, but it was yesterday.

We have the power to change this sick and stupid culture, just like the early disciples did. We’re just a “baby church” as our coach Paul Nixon calls us. We have typically 60 people on Sundays. But in four months, we’re going to add a second service of about 50-80 people. And then 6-12 months later, a third service and a fourth after that. We know it sounds crazy, but at The Village, we dream dreams so big that only God can make them come true.

The World is pretty broken right now. There is pain to spare. There is fear to spare. There is hatred to spare. But starting at Central & Monroe, in the broken City of Toledo, Ohio, a city in economic depression, we are going to start. We may be crazy, but we have more disciples than Peter started with, and we are going to start changing the world. We’re screw ups too, but we’ve got the Spirit that’s been around for a few thousand years now. Wanna help change that world? Join us Sundays at 10:30, or next Sunday between 2-6 PM feeding the poor at St. Mark’s Church, or Saturday June 5th giving away free books & toys at the Old West End Festival.

Cutting Edge Ministry by Cheri Holdridge

"Beware ministry on the cutting edge; because on the cutting edge you bleed." I'm told this piece of advice was circulating more than a decade ago, in the church growth movement, among mega church staff people. The idea was this -- better to play it a bit safe when trying to grow a mega church. Let someone else experiment. Use the tried- and-true methods that are working to grow your church -- and don't take too many chances. This advice may have worked in the 1990's of fast growing suburban church planting; but in my world, the words take a different twist.

I work in the urban context, with people who, for the most part, "live on the edge" every day. They don't choose to be on the edge, it's simply a fact of life. And yes, when you live on the edge, it's messy and bloody. So, likewise, cutting edge ministry with people who live on the edge, can be both messy and bloody. But I have to say, I think ministry on the edge is a familiar place for Jesus.

In this first six months of the Village Church these are some of the life situations we have encountered among our community: death of a friend from a drug overdose, a pregnant single woman asking for help so she can keep her baby, a divorce, a lesbian being publically kicked out of her leadership position in a church for being a lesbian, a homeless family with a mom with epileptic seizures living in church buildings for housing, an ex-con, a war vet dealing with post traumatic stress, and parents of transgender children looking for support. The list of people living on the edge goes on and on. . . .

Sadly, there are few churches prepared to deal with the REAL WORLD hurts that REAL PEOPLE are dealing with, and so church is the last place people go when they need help. People turn to bars for community; and turn to sex and drugs to numb their pain. They buy lottery tickets and go to casinos in the hopes that money will give them freedom.

This is a great time to be planting churches. People need hope. And every Sunday morning, at The Village Church, I see about 60 people who would not have a place to worship if it were not for this edgy church. We meet in an old restaurant/bar, and serve great coffee and have music led by a band leader who does not know any hymns. Joe is often sleepy from playing a gig at a bar on Saturday nights. But he drags himself out of bed to play at The Village Church on Sunday mornings because he wants to offer HOPE to people who live on the edge. You see, on the edge you bleed, and people who live on the edge need the healing message that God loves us no matter what!

So, yes, beware ministry on the cutting edge. On the edge you bleed.

But people on the edge of life are already bleeding.

And Jesus is already hanging out there with them, so I'm pretty sure that's where Jesus wants us to be to -- a church, on the edge.