Pastor’s Point

Welcome to each and every one of you who have joined us this fall! I hope you have had a refreshing break and are raring to go. To you veterans, you have been missed! To you rookies, we are glad you are here and hope you still feel the same in a few months!! As we start another choir season, we are following the theme “Shine Like Stars” throughout this year, taken from Philippians 2:  “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.”  

Each week, we want to look at a specific way we can achieve stardom, not as celebrities but as bright lights that make a difference. As a worship community, we will be studying a set of 16 core values (Sweet Sixteen) we hold up as a way of doing life together biblically. We begin that journey this Sunday as we look at the value of knowing the Word. In addition, this space in our newsletter will be devoted to sharing practical ways we can become brighter in our ministry toward one another and those we serve. While it is called the Pastor’s Point, I’d like to open it up to any of you who would like to contribute an article on this very topic.

As we start a new season, I am aware that each of us, here for the first time or “old-timers” wants to belong, to feel a part of, not apart from the group. And we want to be welcomed and accepted as we are, “warts and all.” Ken Medema, a blind, contemporary Christian songwriter, once wrote these words, referring to the church:

If this is not a place where tears are understood, where can I go to cry?

And if this is not a place where my spirit can take wing, where can I go to fly?

His chorus was equally compelling:

I don’t need another place for trying to impress you with just how good and

virtuous I am.

I don’t need another place for always being on top of things,

everybody knows

 that it’s a sham.

In truth, no matter where we spend the hours of each day, we can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. Maybe it’s because we are in a certain life situation, have a certain color of skin, or have arrived at a certain age that we don’t feel fully accepted. Put another way, we’ve been moved to the margins. We’ve all heard the term marginalized. It refers to those people or persuasions which are out of the mainstream, less influential, or even completely devalued. The dictionary lists, among it’s meanings, “the edge of something, especially the outer edge or the area close to it; the part farthest from the center- that part of anything, e.g., a society or organization, that is least integrated with the center. Least often considered, least typical or most vulnerable.”

Have you ever felt out of the mainstream, devalued, without influence where you want it most…in your job, in your marriage or family, in this church? Or maybe you are one of those who easily flows with the idea that in this dog-eat-dog world of ours, there will always be those who are “losers”, undesirables, or just inconveniences? In such a Darwinian approach to the masses, what’s the big deal when someone less educated, less attractive, perhaps less spiritual than the mainstream goes under for the third time?

But if we take our cues as shining stars from the Light of the World himself, it is a big deal. As our Good Shepherd, he relentlessly pursues those very kinds of people. Those people like you and me. I think of the line from the familiar hymn, “Come Thou Fount”– Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand’ring from the fold of God. Talk about your margins! While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We weren’t just a little off-center…we were nearly over the cliff!

May it never be an acceptable notion to any of us at Hope that we are outside the margins of God’s love and redemption plan…ever! And may it be equally intolerable that we would view even one person we encounter as less than us or unworthy of the touch of God. As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, let’s use margins for writing papers, not classifying people.

So, again, welcome to this choir season! Welcome to what I believe will be an exciting year of service, outreach and fun. But also welcome to the grand lab experiment we call Christian community, where we learn how to worship with a lot more than words.

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