Humbug is an old term meaning hoax or jest.
The Atheist Bus Campaign message reads: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
Some groups claim they are simply trying to give people choices, but it seems to me they are actively trying to recruit people to join in their opinion. If “Religion is the opium of the people” as Karl Marx famously claimed. Then I say leave us to our harmless addiction but apparently the serious practice of Christianity, and holding a Biblical world view in particular, is upsetting to some groups. So we speak softly and put away our sticks.
The protagonist in a novel I’m reading bemoans the state of his marriage and is wondering what it takes to be a good parent in the following quote.
“…whatever counts as normal these days. Two parents who actually love each other might be an interesting and radical beginning, but the mere suggestion that the traditional household might turn out to be good for children offends so many different constituencies that hardly anybody is willing to raise it any longer. Which further suggests, as George Orwell knew, that within a generation or two nobody will think it either. Moral knowledge that remains secret eventually ceases to be knowledge.”
“Though it may still be moral.” (p. 228, The Emperor of Ocean Park, Stephen L. Carter)
Christmas in no hoax, sin is not a quaint anachronistic cliché. BUT if we as Christians are afraid to offend others with our faith freely and publicly expressed, if we choose to be gentle meek and mild by not celebrating the Christ of Christmas all year round because it “offends so many different constituencies” then we are in danger of allowing the world to think Christmas is about Santa Clause and “Holiday Trees”.
Luke 2:8–14 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
This Christmas and in the new year I encourage you to be anything but secretive with your faith. If we as Christians do not worship, celebrate and proclaim Christ to the world, who will? It takes only a generation or two to forget what is no longer spoken. God’s word and God’s people are the cure for the spiritual amnesia that seems to be creeping across our nation and our world.

Celebrate Jesus

Merry Christmas,
Pastor Jim & Sharon

Though I’m loathe to admit it I decided to take the advice of my bride who said, “You’ve had an unusual year, why don’t you write about that?” So with a day to spare (I try not to wait ‘till the last minute, but the last hour doesn’t intimidate me) I penned (that is so much more poetic than “I word processed”) the following…

The Pastor’s Report 2009

Learning to Trust Your Physicians (MD & GOD)

Matthew 4:23–25  Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.  News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.

On November 21, 2008, my primary care physician, Dr. Clark, noticed a spike in my PSA count during my annual physical. He referred me to Dr Thomas Schwaab at Concord Urology for a second opinion on the heath of my prostate. On January 20, Dr. Schwaab suggested three options, do nothing (not recommended), watchful waiting with periodic blood tests to monitor the PSA or schedule a biopsy.

On February 19, Dr Santos performed a biopsy and on March 6, Sharon & I, along with our son, Joel (a Harvard trained radiologist) met with Dr. Schwaab and learned that cancer was detected in the biopsy. He sent a sample to Johns Hopkins for a second opinion where the results were confirmed and we opted for robotic surgery.

A friend suggested we may want to go to Boston for confirmation of the diagnose and recommended treatment. I chose to stay with Dr. Schwaab because of his credentials, his experience and his warm yet forthright manner of discussing the options and possible outcomes of various treatments. I also spoke with hospital staff that I knew who spoke well of Dr. Schwaab’s reputation and skill as a surgeon. In short I had developed a report with him and learned to trust him.

Our daughter, Bethany (and baby Eli) came up from Kentucky to be with mom and Sheri, our Newburyport daughter, was only a phone call away when on April 16 I underwent a Radical Prostatectomy. A May 18 blood test showed my PSA to be undetectable and no further treatment was needed. I am now on a four-month follow-up schedule and remain cancer free. Dr. Schwaab has moved on to research, surgery and teaching at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY.

That was my journey this year. An apparently healthy man, I went for my annual physical with my doctor who had previously joked that I was a boring patient of good weight and borderline high blood pressure who exercised and didn’t drink or smoke but I left with the specter of cancer looming before me.

“Who do You Trust?” was a game show that aired on ABCTV from 1957-1963.  “The grammatically correct question, ‘Whom do you trust?’ is the crucial question in life. It is a deeply religious question. Trust is an inescapable concept. We have to trust something, even if this is only our own good judgment. It is never a question of trust vs. no trust. It’s a question of what or whom to trust. In its most significant forms, trust involves vows: marriage, citizenship, and church membership.” (Gary North)

I have learned to trust my physicians by developing relationships with them and by being open and honest when I speak with them. I have prayed for Dr. Clark’s daughter and learned that Dr Schwaab considered following his grandfather into the pastoral ministry before choosing surgery. We learn to trust the Great Physician by spending time with him and being open and honest in all of our communications with him. Isaiah proclaims in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 53, “he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Jesus death and resurrection provides healing to all who come to him. The Great Physician’s healing goes beyond surgery and physical wellbeing and grants peace and comfort even in times of tragedy and pain that would otherwise drive us to despair. Where is God in Haiti? He is under the rubble of the Hotel Montana, he is with the parents and families of the missing and the dead. The prayer of faith saves the sick and heals the brokenhearted.

God knows our hearts. An annual physical is important, but do we take our “annual spiritual” as seriously? Some can’t afford an annual physical because they are uninsured or underinsured, Congress is embroiled in a great debate about how to deal with that. Others avoid the doctor’s office for reasons of their own; Congress has no control over that. Frequent visits to the physician can be expensive but unlimited visits with the Great Physician are priceless.

In 2010 we are beginning the year with an emphasis of reading God’s word. Let us together learn to trust him more. I invite you all to join us for a “Spiritual Health Assessment” Thursday evenings at 7:00 from February 4 through March 4.

Whom do you trust? We tend to trust the ones we know, let this be the year we all get to know God more intimately and  give ourselves more completely to the Great Physician, Jesus.

 Pastor Jim

The Sound of Mucus
 (sung to the tune of The Sound of Music)

 The house is alive with the sound of mucus
With coughs we have coughed for a thousand years
The kids fill my ears with the sound of hacking
My heart wants to heal every boy and girl

My heart wants to pull all the wings off those germs
That rise from the carpet to the roof
My heart wants to sythe the germs one by one
from a church on a breeze
To sink like a hook when it rips all their flesh and
throw them away
And sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray

I go to the kids when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I’ve heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of children
And I’ll sing once more

Monday we hopped a plane from Manchester to Nashville to visit our grandkids in Kentucky. It happened to be a Northwest fight connecting in Detroit 3 days after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab set himself on fire while trying to blow up the plane. But then again we flew to Italy on Sept. 11 a couple of years ago so we’re not particularly bothered by coincidence. We also believe God is watching over us, though he has a lot to do so we try not to put ourselves in places where he has to rescue us if we can help it.

We arrived extra early assuming things would go slowly on a busy travel day with heightened security. We were wrong, there was no line at the Northwest counter and though passing through security was slow, it went smoothly. And our plane was late coming to the gate. I looked at the snow flurries outside and quipped to Sharon, “I hope this blizzard doesn’t cause our flight to get cancelled.” We boarded our plane about five minutes after our scheduled departure time, but the desk attendant assured us we would all still make our connections.

Waiting, waiting, waiting…hey it’s snowing more seriously now..what! we can’t see out the window now. The Captain advises us a snow squall is passing and the tarmac needs plowing. Next the plane was bathed with de-icer, visions of Al Gore weeping over the damaged environment, and we wait a bit more. At lat airborne only one hour behind schedule. The good news is we have a 50-minute layover in which to make our connecting flight…oh wait, that’s not such good news.

It seems that everyone on the plane has a connecting flight they expect to miss. The flight attendant gave us a direct number to check the status of our connecting flight. On the ground we call, good news, that flight is delayed one and a half hours, bad news we’re an our late arriving so we may have only 10 minutes to find the gate before they complete boarding, good news both gates are in the same terminal, bad news we’re deplaning (stupid word I use for spite) at gate A68 and boarding at gate A57. We run between gates and find all is quiet, I ask the attendant if they are boarding, he replies, “The plane doesn’t leave until 5:00.” I’m confused, it’s 4:45 and I notice there is no plane at our gate. Have I entered the twilight zone? I ask myself. Maybe there is something to this parallel universe after all. Fringe is a documentary? None of the above, we are still in the Eastern Time Zone, much to my surprise. They say Ohio is the start of the mid-west so why is Michigan in the Eastern Time Zone. We now have an hour to spare.

Our flight to Nashville was uneventful and Bethany met us at the curb promptly after a brief wait in the cell phone lot. “Dad, the car is making a funny noise when I brake.” I take the wheel for our ride north and listen carefully. “Do you think it’s the lug nuts,” she asks, “we just had four new tires mounted.”

“It is highly unlikely that loose lug nuts would cause a thumping sound when we decelerate.” We make mental notes of what we hear and when the sound occurs so we can direct our mechanic to the correct symptom. I look to see if the “check engine” light is on, Click and Clack always ask that. The sound goes away somewhere near the TN KY boarder on I65 and we are happy.

The next morning Brian takes the boys to the pediatrician to check on their persistent cough. We bid him adieu as he departs on a 90 minute tour, a 90 minute tour. 5 hours later he returns. It seems like the lug nuts were loose and one stud broke. Oops, looks like the chump got stumped (another obscure Car Talk reference). Father-in-law to the rescue (with the aid of AAA) I hop in  the Saab (soon to be obsolete or a subsidiary of Striker, a Dutch sports car maker and former F1 team) and truck on over to the local Chevron station where Brian awaits the tow truck. We head for the drug store as the van leaves for the Firestone garage. Emergency supplies are obtained at Riley’s Bakery (Hungarian Coffee Cake and Pecan Pie). I leave Brian at Firestone and head for home with the boys. When Brian returns I’m hoping he doesn’t feel like the captain to my Gilligan, but honest, I never heard loose lug nuts make that sound before. The last time a car of mine had loose lug nuts the tire just fell off soundlessly, but that’s another story from another time.

Who Loves Ya Baby?

Psalm 91:9-16 (NIV)
⁹ If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the Lord, who is my refuge— ¹⁰ then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. ¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; ¹² they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. ¹³ You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. ¹⁴ “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. ¹⁵ He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. ¹⁶ With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

Who Loves Ya Baby?  God does…

Even when disaster comes and harm befalls us, God is there with us going through the dark holding our hands.

Even more disheartening is people’s penchant for taking the Lord’s name in vain. I recently came across a blog  addressing that very issue I find worth sharing, so I am…

OMG?

By Ken Horn | November 18, 2009

The phrase “Oh, my God” has been turned on its head. The phrase is uttered in reverent prayer by many believers. But God’s name is just a curse word in popular culture.

A rookie movie censor was told to edit out all profanities from an in-flight version of the movie The Queen for use by airline carriers. He bleeped out every use of the word “God.”

In one scene, viewers heard an actor address the queen with, “[Bleep] bless you, ma’am.” “God” was bleeped seven times. The use of “God” has descended to this — there are actually people who think of it only in terms of profanity, not of reverence.

The phrase OMG has been stolen, like many other good words, and made into a patent violation of the third of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exodus 20:7, NKJV). The NIV clarifies: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.”

That’s clearly what OMG does; it misuses God’s name, takes it in vain, which means treating it as empty or meaningless. God’s name meaningless?

Yes, even among Christians.

Any believer who uses OMG in a slang sense should be embarrassed every time he or she speaks God’s name in a spiritual context. How can you sing a song that honors His name … if you think so little of Him that you use His name in vain?

It used to be shocking to hear this from unbelievers; today many Christians have been so poisoned by the media and culture that they don’t even realize they’re saying it. If OMG is part of your casual slang vocabulary, you need to hit your knees and plead God’s forgiveness. Then pledge to Him that, with His help, you will never again so dishonor Him.

There’s also a second part to the third commandment: “For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”

Christians, we have a God who loved us so much He gave His only Son. How can we use His name in vain?

 Pasted from <http://khorn.agblogger.org/2009/11/18/omg/>

What about MyChurch? Glad you asked. About 10 months ago, Sheri, my MBA daughter, asked if I was using social networking in my church and told me about MyChurch so I created a page and waited for people to find it. Needless to say no one did, at least no one joined. I think that is like building a church, or a new parking lot and expecting a soul searching, grace seeking, God hungry mob to throng to your Sunday morning services.
I discovered MyChurch & facebook are related and linked together so I went back to the FBC MyChurch site and invited everyone (from our church) who’ email address I had with me in KY. Ten people signed on in a day or two. That was a 25% return on my investment. When was the last time you invited 40 people to join you at church or a Christ centered event? I wonder what would happen if we called, emailed or visited 40 friends and invited them to church next Sunday.
MyChurch is not so much an outreach or evangelistic tool as it is a networking, communication, team building tool. My hope is to see people connect and communicate in a variety of ways. Groups may form for men, choir, worship team, women and youth. Some will be private, invitation only, others will be public. There is also a page for calendaring, photos and audio clips of services and events. I know the argument that everyone doesn’t have a computer, but most do and for those who do this is one way to drag the church in to the 21st cebtury.

Target Marketing Magazine recently published a case study called Retaining the Flock. They take a look at the way one church is making their church more sticky–text messaging. Their pastor had this to say:

We had a series that we called TEXT. It was a study of the Bible, a play on the word, obviously. What we wanted to do was to help our people get to interact more with scripture on a daily basis. So we tried to find an apparatus to communicate with them that was relevant, already ingrained in their daily life. So we said, ‘Well, what if we text message them Bible verses for the day?’

Church marketing isn’t good for too much if you can’t keep people involved after they arrive, and this is just one way churches are using technology to focus on closing the back door.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:09 AM Nov 28

GraffitiI received an e-mail the other day from someone—I’ll call him Dave—who is struggling with the idea of using social media sites like Facebook for their church community. He was conflicted because on one hand he sees Facebook as a great way to communicate and dialogue with people who are a part of the church. On the other hand, he sees some organizations on Facebook with profanity on their “walls” and other user-generated clutter that seems to distort the intent of the group.

Dave’s assumption is that the church is accountable for what ends up on their “walls.” He even thought about limiting “friends” to members. “But when you have 2,000 members, this really doesn’t help so much. Get 2,000 people involved and you’ve got your share of chowderheads and gadflies who will post anything.”

Dave feels he’s between a rock and a hard place. “If you limit the social interactivity, then you are left with one dimensional communication and the question ‘What’s the point?’”

I understand Dave’s dilemma. I like to think of Facebook as the mall where you go meet people, not the church building where they come meet you. You don’t control what stores are in the mall or what music is playing or how people are dressed. But you can guide the conversation. You just might need to talk a little louder over all the noise, or move the conversation to another environment altogether.

People are messy. And because of this, we should be discipling people to better belief and behavior, not creating or controlling environments. How this translates online might look like digital discipleship, not digital construction. Let’s build people, not places. Just like we can’t control everything offline (graffiti, filth, vandalism, etc.), we can’t control it online either.

But we shouldn’t ignore malls or Facebook just because they’re messy.

Posted by Brad Abare at 7:47 AM