Greetings and salutations!

If you’ve previously been part of a Catholic, or Orthodox, or Lutheran, or Anglican, or Methodist church (or a dozen others), you may have observed Lent at some point or other in your life.  When I was recently asked about it (or lack thereof) in our church family, I wanted to say “baptists don’t do Lent” and let it be that simple, but join me as I think through Lent.  It’s good to understand what it is, and what it isn’t.  It’s good to unpack its symbolism, ponder its purpose, and consider what God might have to say to us.

Let me first tell you Lent exists (as most liturgical traditions exist) because for a majority of Church history, the Church was illiterate.  The recitations of memorized prayers and creeds trace their roots backward to the fact that with the exception of the clergy, no one could read God’s Word for themselves.  The same is true of ritualistic worship services that seem exactly the same every week.  The same is true of seasons of feasting and fasting across the liturgical calendar.  All of these things reinforce the understanding of biblical principles in the lives of congregants.  In other words, now that we can read and study God’s Word for ourselves (in our own language), it’s perfectly legitimate to eliminate some of these traditions.  It’s perfectly legitimate to continue them too, but it’s certainly not necessary.

Let me second tell you why Lent is dumb (yes, I am using hyperbole, like Jesus did in Matthew 5:29-30).  It begins 40 (or so) days before Easter; it’s actually 46 days ending on Maundy Thursday, but that explanation is too long for this article.  Certain traditions have particular rules about what you can and can’t eat on particular days of the week, but that too would be too long to explain (though everyone should search the advent of the McDonald’s Filet o’ Fish on Google!).  Many observers of Lent begin the season by receiving the “imposition of ashes” upon their foreheads.  This reminds me of what a member of my ordination council once said to me about the process of ordination (paraphrasing): ‘what does it matter if a bunch of unholy men put their unholy hands on my unholy head?’  I do see so many people on television news wearing the smudge on their heads, and wonder if they participated just to look the part for the world to see (then again, sometimes I am just a cynic).  What makes the Lenten season even more absurd is that the day before Ash Wednesday is known as “fat Tuesday” (“Mardi Gras” if you speak French).  For many, who will abstain from some thing during Lent, alcohol perhaps, or sweets, or some other indulgence, “fat Tuesday” (and the days leading up to it) provides a time to use up all that they already have.  This is the beginning of the drunken, debaucherous, gluttonous, hedonistic party traditions that characterize the Gulf coast, culminating on that Tuesday.

Alright, now that I have lampooned some of the frivolous aspects of Lent, let me encourage you with its beauty.  First, seasons of feasting and fasting are indeed biblical.  It is good to abstain (from whatever) for a period of time when we earnestly seek the face of God.  It’s also good to break the fast with a celebratory feast, having heard from God.  It is a precious thing to “taste and see that the Lord is good”, as Psalm 34 declares.

Second, hearing “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” is a direct quotation of Genesis 3:19.  It is good for our soul when we hear this truth.  It reminds us of our smallness, our insignificance, our unrighteousness, and God’s contrasting majesty.  We ought to know this daily.

Third, whether receiving the smudge of ash physically or not, we would do well to spend more time in the ashes.  Sackcloth and ashes were common symbols throughout the bible of a good posture: repentance.  Spending 40 days of repentance is a good thing; spending 365 days of repentance is a better thing.  Repent.  Repent more.  Indeed we are dust, and we have sinned against a holy God.  I deserve an eternity in hell, and I need to repent, every day.  May we mourn our sinful selves; may we mourn the cost of our sin; may we be poor in spirit, as the Beatitudes teach us.

Fourth, it is a good and godly thing to experience a season of preparation.  May we set things aside and focus our hearts upon God.  May we cry out for Him to reveal Himself in a new way.  May we seek His face, expecting for Him to show up!  May we Q-tip our ears, and get on our knees, and dig into God’s Word, and cry out to Him, and expect Him to show us aspects of His goodness and grace that we haven’t ever seen before!

Fifth, about the rhetorical question near my ordination, the answer is: “it doesn’t matter”.  It matters not if unholy men put their unholy hands upon my unholy head, unless the Spirit of God is in it.  However, if the hands and the head are seeking the will, and empowerment, and grace of God, it can be a most precious symbol.  Whether you’ve had a smudge upon your forehead or not is frankly irrelevant to me, but if the Spirit of God is involved, it is a precious and powerful symbol.  With or without the symbol, may God hear our prayers of repentance, may the Holy Spirit indwell our souls, direct our paths, and instill the peace of Jesus throughout our lives.

Whether you give up something or not is irrelevant to me too.  Sometimes I laugh at symbolism; other times I worry that participants are most concerned with the shallow symbols.  It’s good for us to learn what the symbols mean, and appreciate the beauty of the substance beneath.  I challenge you to metaphorically clothe yourself in ash, bending to a posture of repentance, understanding and appreciating your own lowliness and unholiness.  I challenge you to repent.  I challenge you to seek the face of God, crying out to Him, preparing your heart, and waiting, waiting for Him to show up.  As we wait, let’s remember that the Lord’s Day is coming!

Savior, when in tears and dust, low we bow to you in trust;
when repentant, to the skies, scarce we lift our weeping eyes,
mindful how you suffered pain, that God’s love in us might reign;
help us claim what we would be; hear our solemn litany.
--A.J.

Hello dear friends!

As I sit down to write this article, I can look out the window and see frozen precipitation.  I believe I am seeing a thin layer of snow, laid atop a thicker layer of sleet.  Regardless, it is white, and has beautified all the buildings, trees, surfaces, etc.  While I enjoy feeling the luxury of gas logs, I know that it is cold outside, and will get colder as the sun sets.  The coming days are supposed to get yet colder, which causes me to think of those who have to work outside: first responders, the Walnut Cove public works crew, those who work in hospitals, and folks who work for the electric companies.  I am also concerned for the people whose home may not be as warm as mine.  I haven’t lost electricity, yet.  Not everyone has gas logs.  Not everyone has this kind of roof over their head.  May we be mindful of those in need, and may we do what we can to be a blessing to our neighbors, no matter the circumstance.

I didn’t set an alarm clock this morning, and it is admittedly nice to have a lazy Sunday.  I am so thankful for Ms. Leigh and Andy & Dakota Cheek for meeting me yesterday afternoon to record today’s worship service.  I won’t have to go “to work” tomorrow; my job doesn’t require me to be in a specific place.  If you have the option to work remotely, or have the flexibility to take a day off on short notice, let’s remember our childhood.  I remember praying for winter weather as a school kid, waking early to turn on the television and wait for the scroll to announce what my school system would do (by the time I got to high school, I would fail to complete my homework, go to bed, and hope I didn’t have to finish in the morn).  Every now and then, there it would read “Guilford County Schools: closed”!  Mama would dress my brother and me [not unlike Randy in A Christmas Story] and let us go outside to play for hours at a time, coming inside to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, drink hot chocolate, and make snow cream together.  After we thawed, we’d go back outside to play.  O what fun we had, and the biggest care we had was whether we could get the snow balls to stay packed together.  The kid inside me is praying for school to cancel tomorrow, just so these little ones can have a day to play, a day like I remember.  Aren’t we thankful for the joys that God gives, filling our hearts?

As I [barely] work ahead [until football kicks off], I am chewing on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which we will preach through in the coming months.  It is heavy in the theme of sanctification, and full of practical applications in “Christian living”.  This has me thinking: will any of us go to heaven because we walk in obedience?  Will we inherit the earth because we strive to be holy, or follow certain rules, or serve our neighbors better, or vote a certain way, or stop others from doing certain things?  Most certainly: no!  Does God care about what we do?  Yes.  Does God care even more about the heart behind our actions?  O yeah!

May we act, and think, certain ways because Jesus is the Lord of our hearts.  May we hold certain values, or opinions, because we have been shaped by the truths of scripture, because God has our hearts.  May we strive toward holy living, toward spiritual maturity, because we want to look more like our Savior.  May we walk toward humility, looking a bit more like Jesus tomorrow than we do today, because His presence is transforming us from the inside, out.  May we be a blessing to our friends and neighbors, because we want them to walk with Him too.  We know that God cares about our obedience, our thoughts and actions; we also know that God cares about our hearts, the hearts behind our actions, the hearts of which He wants to be Lord.  Will any of us go to heaven because of our “Christian living”?  No, not one.  Do we live, striving to honor the Christ, because we are already bound for heaven?  O yeah.  We think, and do, and hold opinions, and treat our neighbors, and care for the needy, and strive for obedience, because we are inheritors of the Kingdom of God.

We “live Christianity” because the Christ already has our hearts.  The Holy Spirit is conforming us into the image of Jesus day by day.  We have been credited with His righteousness, making us justified.  As we walk with Him, growing in faith, striving toward spiritual maturity, we are being sanctified.  All this is possible because of what He has already done for us.  He has conquered sin and death, and given us the grace of eternal life.  He has taken away the hell we deserve, paying for our own sin, and given us an inheritance as sons of God (Matthew 5:9).  This is all because of what He accomplished upon the cross, His blood cleansing our hearts as white as snow.

Lord Jesus I long to be perfectly whole;
I want Thee forever to ransom my soul.
Break down every idol, cast out every foe;
now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
--A.J.

Hello friends,

At approximately 10:08, on Sunday morning, December 21, we were as distant from the sun as we ever get in Earth’s orbit.  At that point, the solstice began the winter season.  I love winter, for several different reasons, but I freely acknowledge that many of you do not!  In recent weeks I have learned a bit about “seasonal affective disorder”; whether because of the cold temperatures, or other reasons, it can be a difficult time of the year for many of us.  Be encouraged!  Between now and the third Sunday of June, our days will continue to get longer and longer and longer.  We’ll see more sun light, and indeed temperatures will rise (which, in turn, will make me sad, and sweaty)!

From Thanksgiving Day, through advent, and into the Christmas season can be difficult for many families.  Whether your loved ones live far away and aren’t able to travel to be together, or whether your family members have jobs requiring them to work on holy days, or whether you have experienced the loss of death within the past year, often times traditional events with family and friends can be bitter-sweet.  To these families and individuals, I want to offer you a bit of encouragement too.

A proper theological view of Christmas should force us to look backward, into the Old Testament.  Between Malachi (who most believe to be the latest of the writing Prophets) and Matthew (the beginning of the New Testament), were about four centuries of time.  Much happened in world history, perhaps most importantly the Roman Empire’s conquest of the Promised Land, but bible scholars refer to it as the “400 silent years”, because we have no written scripture.  In some respects, the children of Israel went without hearing from God at all.

Pastor Jim, on December 14, preached from Isaiah 11.  This text, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 7, Micah 5, and Jeremiah 31 are but a few of the Messianic Prophecies that would have seem to have gone unfulfilled… but, indeed the Messiah did come!  “In the fullness of time” Galatians 4 teaches us, God the Son became a human being, in the womb of a virgin girl from Nazareth!  As Isaiah 11 teaches us (like Pastor Jim said), we see all in one Prophecy, both the first coming and the second coming of the Christ!  Even seven centuries before Jesus was born, Isaiah had the privilege of catching a glimpse of His eternal Kingdom!  We see an even clearer picture in Revelation and other New Testament books!

Pastor Pat, on December 07, preached John 1.  John’s account of the “Christmas story” is found in John 1:14 – “the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us” – John goes on to proclaim “we observed His glory; the glory as the One and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”!  Have you observed His glory?  Do you have a personal relationship with Him?  If so, you know hope!

We live in a dark world, literally.  We are just past the longest night of the year.  We also live in a dark world, metaphorically.  Relationships are broken, people are enslaved to addiction, wickedness seems to prevail everywhere.  The curse of sin is apparent in our world.  Indeed it is dark.  Whether you experience seasonal depression, or grief has cast a pall over your family gatherings, or you seem to experienced the brokenness of our world acutely in recent days, we can have hope.  I Thessalonians 4 encourages us that we [who have a saving relationship with Jesus] “will not grieve like the rest” of the world, “who have no hope”.  Though our lost neighbors have no hope, we who know Jesus, and are known by Jesus, have hope!  Simon Peter calls it a “living hope”, because the embodiment of our hope resurrected the third day!!

Jesus is the embodiment of hope, the embodiment of grace, and the embodiment of light.  As Pastor Pat reminded us from John 1:5, “life was in Him, and that life was the light of men”.  May our encouragement, our hope, be found in this truth: “that light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it”!  Regardless of how dark the world seems to be, it cannot overcome the light of King Jesus!  Regardless of how difficult days might be for us, we can have a hope of His Kingdom yet to come to full fruition.  Even during the shortest days of the year, we have a hope of what is yet to come!  Spring and summer are coming; comfort and healing are coming; even on the day Jesus was crucified and died, Sunday was coming!  Be encouraged, church!  We know Hope, and His name is Jesus!

o sing “hallelujah”, our hope springs eternal,
o sing “hallelujah”, now and ever we confess
Christ, our hope, in life and death
--A.J.

Greetings friends,

In recent weeks, we have thought a lot about the biblical principle of stewardship.  I do hope you have loved (half as much as I do) the illustration of the keys to the gate of the city walls of Edinburgh, Scotland!  I’ve challenged us all to think of ourselves as the Lord Provost, the “little man” with the velvet pillow, who, every summer offers back to the king of Scotland (and England) his keys upon the pillow.

My father used to work for Winn-Dixie, a grocery store; he was the manager of the Dairy & Frozen Food department, and later the Assistant Manager of a store.  Between those two roles, he was the “third man” (I always love asking him about his various vests of different colors!), at which point, he became a “key holder”.  In many a retail store, “key holders” are in positions of authority, because they have the responsibility of opening or closing the store.  They have financial responsibility to close the registers, perhaps they manage inventory, or over-see other staff.  “Key holders” must be worthy of trust.

My challenge to us: what “keys” do we hold?  Most of us have a decent education; we hold a decent intellect.  Do we hold relationships and networks that we can leverage?  Do we have physical bodies, of which, most parts work properly, most days?  Do we hold real estate, and homes, and vehicles, and bank accounts?  Do we have jobs, with pay checks?  Do we have work days free now because we are retired?  Do we have less busy weekends now that the kids are out of the house?  Do you have Tuesday evenings free after bowling season ends (yes, I am that cool!)?  Do you have musical talents to share?  Are you good at business management, or marketing and communications, or cooking, or sales, or accounting?  Do you have gifts of hospitality, or encouragement, or teaching, or are you really good at handling kids?  Is it possible that we are all holding more “keys” than we first realized?

As we have seen, in Job, and Psalm 107, and Malachi, and Luke recently, stewardship involved money / material possessions, but it certainly includes more than that.  Yes, stewardship includes giving, but it also includes taking care.  How can you give of your time, talent, and treasure to serve within our church?  How can you give to serve beyond our church?  How can you nurture and protect these gifts from God, to leave things better than you found them?  How can you reduce your waste footprint, to better steward limited resources, and steward God’s creation?  How can you leverage all these gifts, “keys”, to glorify God?  Did you know that the greatest way to glorify God is to use your gifts to bless others?

Did you know that the most precious “key” we hold is the Good News?  Are you being the steward of this gift God would have you to be?  Are you protecting it (guarding doctrine, biblical fidelity)?  Are you nurturing it (cultivating a relationship with God in your heart daily)?  Are you living it out, being the light of the world Jesus calls us to be?  Are you walking humbly, obediently, in the process of sanctification?  Are you sharing this Good News with our neighbors to who so desperately need to hear it?  Are you hoarding the Good News to yourself, or are you leveraging this gift to bless others?  Is your commitment to missions and evangelism, evidence that you are indeed a trust-worthy steward of the Good News?

I confess to you, I don’t think I have written so many questions in any essay or paper, EVER before.  I freely acknowledge that I have more questions than answers here, but I hope these questions challenge you, because they have challenged me in recent weeks.  I have tried to be a good “stock boy” (which my father was at the grocery store), learning that I am holding way more “keys” than I knew a few months ago.  Counting these “keys” has driven me to my knees in recent weeks, realizing that I have more reasons to be thankful, more and more and more.  When my spiritual posture is in this place, it’s then that the King of kings seems to whisper to me “I return these keys, being perfectly convinced that they cannot be placed in better hands than those of the Lord Provost and Councillors of my good City”.  May our hands be the trust-worthy hands of a faithful steward God would have them to be!

Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, all your money, talents, time, and love,
consecrate them all upon the altar while your Savior from above speaks sweetly
“trust Me, try Me, prove Me” saith the Lord of hosts “and see
if a blessing, unmeasured blessing, I will not pour out on thee!”
--A.J.

Hello friends!

Just within the past week, my aunt gave me a box of Christmas Tree Cakes.  Several of you know that these are my absolute favorite Little Debbie product.  I have multiple t-shirts celebrating the cakes; I have been known in years past to stock up, freezing them, and eating them all year long; some might argue that it is my favorite aspect of the advent/Christmastide season.  Mind you, we still have several days before October ends.  I have been blown away how many houses have entire front yards full of decor, weeks ahead of time, as folks prepare for Halloweds’ Eve.  Before we fill those same yards with inflatable reindeer and candy canes, going full Clark Griswold-style adornment, let me encourage us to slow our rolls, allowing a moment for us to reflect in gratitude as Thanksgiving Day approaches.

The fourth Thursday of November is a federal “holi day” here in the United States, but I’d like to argue that it should indeed be a “holy day” for us as followers of Jesus.  Better yet, let’s scrap the idea of limiting it to a day, and let’s be thankful 365 days per year.  What makes our thankfulness holy, it not THAT we have things for which to be thankful.  What makes gratitude holy, is TO WHOM we express our thanks.  Every human being, if they truly stop long enough to count their blessings, has things for which to be thankful, but we, as disciples of Jesus, know Who deserves our thanks.

The night before I type this, my father and I were talking about his uncles and aunts, the ones who adopted 20-year-old him when he moved to North Carolina in the spring of 1978.  We talked about how I, as a kid, knew them better than his own parents, who retired to Florida after military service.  I told Dad “I was pretty blessed to have several extra grandparent-figures as a kid, but I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”  He responded something to the effect of ‘yeah, we’re all pretty good at taking things for granted; you don’t really appreciate what you have until you don’t have it anymore.’  In a world where we make lists, sprinting from one task to the next, I think it is a good and godly thing to slow down, looking around, and taking inventory of what we “see”.  Perhaps then, we will be better able to count our blessings, or at least attempt to begin to count them.

In the weeks ahead, I will be preaching a sermon series on stewardship.  I have sensed God leading me to do so for nearly a year now, and I must confess to you, I am nervous about it.  I want to honor the Lord, and I’d really like to avoid sounding like a televangelist with his hands out in the process.  I have found, in my preparations for this series, that generous, cheerful giving ONLY comes down-stream from healthy thankfulness.

Our American traditions of giving thanks in the autumn, as the harvest completes, paints a beautiful picture of why we are grateful.  God is sovereign over the sun and the rain; in some years the crops yield little, and in other years the crops yield much.  In times of plenty or want, we are reminded just Who controls all things.  Our baptist fore-fathers were among the English separatists who became the pilgrims to the new world.  Perhaps some of them voiced prayers of gratitude around Plymouth in the 1600s.  Allow me to commend to you, George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation.  You can search online and find it easily.  Read it.  Read it this year, and many years.  Read it with your family and friends.  President Washington understood that he, and his fellow patriots had much for which to be thankful.  He also understood to whom he should give thanks.

As we fly through November into the advent season, decorate how and when you want to.  Join me in eating a Little Debbie cake or two (or 40).  Fill your home with laughter and loved ones (and football?).  Fill your kitchen and bellies with delicious food.  Fill your calendar with dinners and get-togethers, and shopping trips as you check of the lists.  It’s good to do all these things, but give pause, and fill your mind and heart with gratitude.  O give thanks – to the Lord – for He is good; His faithful love endures forever!!

With gladness in your heart, thanks-giving in your spirit,
be quick to praise the Lord, let all around you hear it!
Let others know what He has done.  Praise God who gave His only Son.
Sing, congregation, sing!
--A.J.

Greetings dear friends!

In recent months, I have been writing about how we ought to view missions, and how God calls us each to “live on mission”.  Though I took a bit of a break from this theme this-past month, I hope you took away the importance of commitment to an undiluted Good News, which further strengthens our ability to obey the Great Commission faithfully.  Last Sunday, I preached from Philippians 2, where we find King Jesus setting the ultimate example of humility.  It seems clear to me that God calls us to strive toward humility, understanding it as a synonym of “Christ-likeness” and “holiness”.  This striving goes hand-in-hand with the process of sanctification, where the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.  As we continually repent, walking closer and closer with Jesus, we grow toward maturity, looking more and more like Jesus over time.

This process of sanctification is the natural course of spiritual growth for all followers of Jesus.  It is accelerated by intentional discipleship processes.  Let’s recall that the Great Commission (Matthew 28) doesn’t call us to “go and make converts”; it calls us to “go and make disciples”.  Discipleship is a life-long process, whereby we are “conformed into the image of Christ (Romans)”.  At the end of Matthew 28, the command to “make disciples” is explained with three participles: going, baptizing, and teaching.  Baptizing is the obvious one; making disciples assumes evangelizing the lost.  If we are being disciples who make disciples, souls will get saved, and those new disciples will get baptized.  Teaching is fairly obvious too; as we grow in our faith (sanctification), we need to learn more, teaching others, and being taught by others.  We all need a “Paul” who is an example for us to follow; we all need a “Timothy” who is following our example; we also need multiple people around us as “Barnabas” was to Paul, partners in ministry, sharpening one another in encouragement and brotherhood/sisterhood.

Going, is a bit more ironic.  Going is a prerequisite if we are going to meet new people on mission, evangelizing them.  No lost people will ever hear the Good News if the Church doesn’t go.  We absolutely must leave the house, but we don’t even need to go “on a mission trip” to live intentionally.  We can befriend, and get to know, and earn the trust, and share our faith with our neighbors, and waiters, and cashiers, and bankers, right here in town!  However, as we grow toward spiritual maturity, as we are engaged in the teaching of sanctification, our “going” becomes much effective.  As we grow in discipleship, we are better equipped to serve lost people, share the Good News through our testimonies, pray for sensitivity and discernment as we navigate conversations, and understand what the bible has to say about the issues raised by our lost neighbors.  As we are being made into more mature disciples, we will improve in our efforts to go and make further disciples.

Whether you prefer to call it “discipleship” or “sanctification”, it is an essential aspect of us being the followers of Jesus that He calls us to be.  I want our church family, and every member hereof, to be disciples who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, until Jesus calls us home.  If we are going to be the church on mission that God calls us to be (that I very, very much want us to be), we must – individually – be followers of Jesus, living on mission faithfully.  If we are individually obeying the Great Commission, if we are corporately obeying the Great Commission, it assumes that God’s instructions to us trump our collective will.  Back to the notion of humility: as we grow toward humility, we are better able to set aside personal agendas, yielding to the lordship of Jesus.  May we all put our respective will aside, walking in selflessness (of which, Jesus is the ultimate example), keeping our eyes upon the objective of all people groups gathering around the throne of God in heaven one day.  In so doing, as subjects of King Jesus, let’s be who He calls us to be, let’s go where He calls us to go, and let’s do what He calls us to do!

My will is not my own, ‘til Thou hast made it Thine;
if it would reach a monarch’s throne, it must its crown resign.
Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free;
force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be!
--A.J.

Greetings friends!

I am not a single-issue voter.  We have a very large, complicated system of governments, and I try to sift and weigh a number of policy factors as I consider how to vote.  On the majority of ballots, we are choosing between humans (vs. referenda) where decisions are further complicated by personalities and trust-worthiness.  Among the issues I weigh highly, is that of religious liberty.  It should surprise none of you that I am a big fan of a “high wall” separating the Church and the state (as defined by Roger Williams in the 1600s).  The state (government) need not fear the influence of good and godly people living out their faith, even in the public square.  The Church, however, should always be leery of governmental encroachment into the affairs of the soul, or groups of believers intending to nourish one another’s souls.

Thanks be to God that we have a country with a Constitution.  It’s very first amendment recognizes our right to freely exercise whatever system of beliefs we have.  As a pastor, I am especially sensitive to social, political, and legal issues surrounding religious liberty.  I want to protect our church, and all other religious groups, from the heavy hand of government getting into our spiritual business.

In July, the Internal Revenue Service shifted its definitions of how to interpret and enforce a specific amendment to our federal tax codes.  To be clear, the law is still the law, and stands in effect, but the I.R.S. (at least for the moment) is choosing to enforce it differently (or not enforce it at all, but that is another conversation for another day).  This tax code amendment was signed into law by President Eisenhower in 1954, and was named for Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (Texas-Dem.).  I would argue that the “Johnson amendment” to our tax code was a well-meaning endeavor.  It states that any non-profit organization that campaigns for (or opposes) a political candidate stands in jeopardy of losing its tax-exempt status.  This applies to lots of different kinds of organizations, and would have been enforced by the I.R.S.  Churches are basically afforded the status of a 501(c)(3) organization (it’s a bit more complicated, but roll with me), so over the past 7 decades, this rule in the tax code has been widely understood to apply in this way: churches can’t endorse political candidates, so preachers can’t talk about politics in the pulpit.  Though it has never been that simple, enforcement of this law has been selective, highly subjective, and held over the heads of pastors for a long time.  Supposedly, the new definitions within the I.R.S. (at least for the moment) will give greater latitude for preachers and churches to publicly speak in favor of candidates now.

I appreciate a government agency actively loosening restrictions on religious organizations, and I will always advocate for the liberty to say whatever God lays upon my heart from our pulpit (or anywhere else), but frankly, whether or not the federal government gives our church tax-exempt status is irrelevant to me.  I am going to preach what God’s Spirit tells me to preach, and strive to be as faithful to His Word as I can be, regardless of consequence.  I appreciate our church being afforded certain legal and financial privileges, but whether we have them or not, our mission remains the same.

I know of WAY too many churches that spend WAY too much time talking about political issues already.  I know of pastors who have been openly spouting their political opinions (from both sides of the aisle) for far too long.  While I respect and appreciate their right to preach whatever they feel compelled to preach, I would humbly submit that they preach a different “gospel” than I do.  It breaks my heart that far too many pews are full of people who hear their preacher dilute, and hi-jack, and twist scripture to fit their personal agenda (political or otherwise).

To be clear, “male and female He created them (Genesis 1:27)”.  The idea that such a sentence is even viewed by some to be a political statement in this country today, probably has Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson rolling in their graves.  To be clearer, “God created man in His own image (same verse)”.  If human life has value, it is because we have been created as image-bearers of God.  I would argue that human life is measurably more valuable than all other creation; and that we do not begin to bear His image at birth.  I will always proclaim a message of the dignity and sanctify of human life.  Why?  Because the God of the bible proclaims such a message.  We may disagree over the finer points of application, but we are an unapologetically pro-life church because our God is a pro-life God.  In Genesis 2, God embeds in institution of marriage within creation.  He gives it to us, He defines what “marriage” is.  He has never given anyone else the right to redefine His institutions.  Theologically down-stream from this truth, are further teachings on the family and human flourishing, on human sexuality, and on the doctrine of the church.  God’s Word is clear, therefore, I shall strive to be clear.  Where the bible speaks, let’s speak!  I’ll go a step farther: I want us all as followers of Jesus to think biblically about issues, and I strive to apply God’s Word in everyday aspects of life.

That being said, while I am glad to be able to discuss anything and everything from God’s pulpit without fear of financial punishment (I mean, I would do it anyway!), I won’t.  Though I refuse to self-censor, I hope you agree with me that I have too many important things to say, than to waste our time with politics.  When I stand behind God’s sacred desk and proclaim “thus saith the Lord”, may He have mercy upon me if I water down, or distort, or add to, or detract one bit from exactly what He has to say!

Tell it!  Tell it out with gladness, God’s good news to every man,
sin forgiven, lives transfigured, all in God’s great loving plan.
In the Book is found a witness to His mighty acts of yore;
listen, heed, obey, and serve Him, kneel before Him and adore,
--A.J.

Dear fellow follower of Jesus,

In recent months, I hope you have joined me in chewing on what missions could, or should, look like within our church family.  Last month, we considered what it means to live life on mission.  During Adult Bible Study, on Wednesday evenings, June 25 and July 09, we studied II Corinthians 6:14, which calls believers to “not be mis-matched with unbelievers”.  I love the ol’ King James Version’s language of being “unequally yoked”.  If you’ll bear with me, I’d like to continue to think aloud as we ponder what it means for these two thoughts to converge.

As I emphasized in our study II Corinthians (and recently from Hebrews on Sundays) to be “holy” is to be “set apart” as “different”.  As we walk in sanctification, pursuing holiness (Hebrews 12:14), we should think, and act, and perhaps look differently from the rest of the world.  We view marriage, and therefore, human sexuality, differently than our neighbors do.  We view the sanctity of human life (because we are made in the image of God) differently than the broader society values human life.  We naturally treat the “least of these” like Jesus (moved with compassion), which is differently/better than our neighbors naturally treat one another.

Historically, many groups of disciples have taken this principle, and apply it by largely removing themselves (ourselves) from society.  As I joked July 09, my church history professor loved to describe this tendency with the phrase: “anything you can do, I can do baptist”.  Christians have segregated ourselves out from the world to produce “Christian movies” and “Christian contemporary music” and “Christian clothing”.  As a child, I remember owing a drawer full of t-shirts that looked like designer clothes, but were tweaked with “cool” biblical branding!  As a middle school student, I was encouraged at church to not listen to “secular music”, instead only listening to “God-honoring music”, because “garbage in: garbage out”.  Do you understand how difficult that was for a band kid?  While we all must exercise discernment when it comes to what we ingest as entertainment, especially with our young people, it’s never so simply black-and-white.
 
Over the past five decades, especially since the pandemic, “Christian parents” have elected to withdraw their children from government schools and educate their students at home, or in co-horts, or establish their own “Christian schools”.  I went to seminary with some peers that had been home-schooled and attended very strict “Christian colleges”.  That made for some interesting conversation during an ethics course when one of these peers had never met someone in the group of people we were discussing.  I challenged a peer who used harsh, prideful language about “them”, by asking if he had ever met or befriended one of “those people”.  I’ve never been more thankful for a liberal arts education than I was that day.

To be clear, parents unquestionably have the right to make the best decision for their children, especially given the quality of our current governmental education systems, which seem to be openly hostile to biblical values, and increasingly so.  [I am so thankful that schools in Stokes County are much less hostile than those in Guilford County.]  I am also grateful for high-quality primary schools, secondary schools, and even universities that are over-seen by churches, or Christian groups, or individual disciples.  I am most certainly not disparaging “Christian education”; I am a product of one of these schools!  That being said, if all Christian parents remove their children from government schools, can you imagine how much worse our culture would be?  If our public schools/colleges were devoid of disciples altogether, just think about how much worse they would be, culturally and academically.

Thinking about this “yoked” principle, the idea that we should be in “the world” but not “of the world”, let’s consider how we might apply the idea of living “on mission” together!  What if we have a few hundred kids, grounded in the truths of scripture, living on mission in their respective school houses every day?  What if a majority of our schools’ teachers were committed followers of Jesus?  What if our best and brightest young people were flooding college campuses, graciously challenging their atheistic classmates in the ivory tower?  What if our most talented, creative folks were influential in the secular music industry, or in Hollywood, or on Wall Street?  What if the Church’s smartest, were leading major corporations, and spear-heading scientific research, and running hospitals, and getting elected to public office?  Like a virus, can you imagine churches commissioning their own members to live on mission daily, in all of these areas of society?  Can you imagine if evangelism and spiritual awakening were “infecting” academia and the arts and the sciences and Fortune 500 companies and governmental institutions?  How different would our culture, our world appear to be?  I’d like to live there!

This assumes two things.  A society like I’ve just imagined assumes [firstly] that we, the Church, are making disciples in a high-quality way.  It assumes that we are equipping our kids to bear more influence upon their classmates than their classmates bear upon them.  It assumes that we send our college students off with a robust understanding of what personal responsibility and holiness looks like.  It assumes that we are raising leaders, who are committed to honoring God in their personal lives, and who are willing to leverage what influence they have in their positions of leadership.  It assumes that the average pew-sitter is grounded God’s Word and committed to biblical values.  This vision also assumes [secondly] that, from cradle to grave, we as followers of Jesus are living on mission.  We must be high-quality disciples personally, who are committed to missions and evangelism.  When we find ourselves in the school house, or the job site, or the halls of power, we actively want to serve and love those with whom we rub shoulders.  We want to be agents of grace, promoting human flourishing.  We want to be a blessing to those around us.  Are others better off today, because they had the pleasure of getting to interact with us?

As we strive to be the holy people God calls us to be, let’s go where we go and do what we do, being disciples who make disciples along the way.  This requires us to keep the Great Commission in the front of our minds, living on mission with intentionality as we rub shoulders with neighbors each day, who may be lost.  May our hearts be broken over the condition of our friends and neighbors who do not personally have a relationship with Jesus …yet!

So send I you, to take to souls in bondage
the Word of truth that sets the captives free
to break the bonds of sin, to loose death’s fetters,
so send I you, to bring the lost to Me.
--A.J.

Greetings disciple (who has been called to make further disciples),

I believe I have mentioned this in passing within the past two months, but I have recently been mulling on a thought: mission vs. missions.  The latter has the connotation of “doing missions”, while the former could best be thought of as living “on mission”.  Think of missions (not just a plural) as projects, out-reach events, and trips.  Think about missionaries; most of us are thinking about professional missionaries, getting paid (way too little), theologically trained, and serving “on the mission field” in some far-away place.  It is good and helpful to consider these things.

However, here’s a stumble we can experience if we aren’t careful: missions is out there.  A trip to some other place; a project is over there; an out-reach event is in a different place than where we are currently.  The “mission field” assumes another country, or another state.  Walnut Cove is a mission field too, and we’re here in it!  We don’t need to take a trip, we can do missions right here!  Heck, for that matter, we don’t even need to have projects or out-reach events.  We can just live our lives as missionaries wherever we go and whatever we do.  After all, when Pastor A.J. preaches on Matthew 28 (the Great Commission), he tells us we are called to make disciples by going, by baptizing, and by teaching; I remember him say that we can be “going” to school, or to the grocery store, or to work, or the bank, or the ball game.  Just tonight in bible study he quoted Charles H. Spurgeon as saying “every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter”.

So which is it, is a missionary me, living my life here in Stokes County, or is a missionary a man or woman living in a foreign country?  Both!  Bear with me, there is a point coming, I promise!  We are all called to be ministers/servants; we are all called to be missionaries.  You have a moral obligation to be a disciple, who makes disciples.  This assumes a willingness to participate in evangelism, sharing the great Good News with lost people who need to experience the salvation of Jesus.  This can be done along the way in your day-to-day life; this can also be done in strategic events/programs/projects/trips/etc.  Either way, it requires intentionality to be a missionary.  Whether on a trip, or participating in a local project within our church family, or just living day-to-day with your co-workers or class-mates or neighbors, we must be intentional if we ever want to evangelize and disciple anyone.

Missions helps us cultivate this intentionality.  Many of you can attest, that participating in a trip can focus us to pray, study scripture, prepare ourselves to maximize our efforts for Kingdom impact.  Really, we ought to live our lives every day in that mind-set.  In many of my experiences, I have learned things on a mission trip that serve as a learning laboratory, practices and principles that we can apply here in North Carolina.

Let me warn you against making either of two grave mistakes.  First, do not view missions with an “over there” mind-set.  Don’t view missions as a special occasion thing.  We should live an “on mission” life style all day, every day.  Second, do not focus so much on living the missionary life style each day that you devalue strategic trips and partnerships.  Yes, we have plenty of lost people here in Walnut Cove, we certainly don’t have to go to a far away land to evangelize and make disciples, but Acts 1:8 calls us to have an “ends of the earth” heart behind missions.  Matthew 28 calls us to make disciples of “all the nations (or ethnic groups)”.

By living a missionary life day-to-day, we allow God to reveal and hone our gifts.  This cultivates within us a desire to exercise these gifts in a strategic way, working together to maximize our impact.  We should do mission projects in and around our church.  We should build partnerships; we are using the Acts 1:8 model of concentric circles.  We are working to strengthen partnerships here in “Jerusalem”, around our “Judea”, out into “Samaria”, and to the “ends of the earth”.  As we discover, and strengthen, and solidify our partnerships in each of these circles, God will call us to better equip ourselves, and give, and pray, and go.  All of these things will focus us on maximizing Kingdom impact, seeing souls saved and lives changed.  This, in turn, will underscore our need to live day-to-day “on mission” with great intentionality.  Thinking about “doing missions” is helpful for our church corporately, and helpful for us individually.  Thinking about living “on mission” is helpful, individually and corporately too.  Thinking about one can help us better appreciate the other.  Just pondering the idea of mission vs. missions forces us into a “both and” mentality.  I hope a spark may ignite in your heart as it has been in mind in recent months!  Let’s each be missionaries, together!

Is your life a channel of blessing;
is the love of God flowing through you;
are you telling the lost of the Savior;
are you ready His service to do?
--A.J.

Greetings followers of Jesus!

Last month, I attempted to shoot across your “bow” with some probing questions about why you’re here, a part of this church family.  Though consumerism is not in and of itself an evil thing, it would be incredibly dangerous if it proved to be the long and short of why we’re here.  This month, I want to continue to push the “why” thought.  If indeed you’re here because you have been profoundly changed by a personal relationship with Jesus, don’t you want others to hear and respond to the Good News too?

I have been working in recent months on building a “missions menu” for our church.  My goal is to have that published and available for circulation by the end of September.  In working through this project, I have been reading about missions (with a S at the end) vs. living “on mission”.  I know, I haven’t even defined either term, but suffice it (for this month) to think of these as flip-sides of the same coin, feeding one another.  Both apply to the church corporately.  Both apply to individual believers.  As I mentioned a few Sundays ago, do you love your neighbor so little, as to sit back and let them whistle their way into hell?

With this in mind, I want to continue to mull through some items publicly.  As always, if you have opinions, or passions, or thoughts about anything below, my door is open to you.  I would love nothing more than discuss these things with you.  As I percolate, I hope you see what I have seen, recently, about strong biblical leadership within the Church.

Though there are a few rare exceptions, our Deacons meet monthly.  I meet with them; occasionally, others meet with them too (committee chairs, our Financial Secretary, etc.) when we have particular issues to discuss.  Deacons’ meetings cover LOTS of items, from financial stewardship and “business items” to prayer concerns, pastoral care of the flock, and strategic planning.  Some months, the bulk of our time is spent on “ash and trash issues (Col. Cohn’s Army term)”; other months, we get to discuss the spiritual health of our congregation and its members.  In April, our agenda was relatively thin, and we had the freedom to discuss more important matters than “ash and trash” business: missions!!

We talked about our current irons in the fire: the adoption of Heritage Apartments, partnership with East Stokes Outreach Ministry, partnership with The Pregnancy Network, partnership with the Back Yard Bible club in Germanton, on-going efforts to rebuild in the mountains, and Hope Kitchen (I already fear this list is not exhaustive).  We talked for 30 seconds about the logistics of the “Kitchen” side of that ministry, and about 15 minutes about the “Hope” side of that ministry.  The pressing question that we’ve all been mulling: how can we take the existing vehicle of Hope Kitchen, leveraging relationships and building upon it, and “dial up the spiritual temperature” of serving our neighbors in need within a 10-mile radius of 415 Summit Street?  Can we train our delivery drivers in more overt evangelism; do we collect requests from our neighbors and follow-up to potentially meet more needs; do we go deeper with the existing list; do we go broader by networking and growing the list; do we partner together with other churches to go twice per month?  These are all ways to bring this ministry to a spiritual “boil” in the months/years ahead.

In addition to chewing on how to better serve and love our neighbors locally, we prayed about potential missions partnerships.  Many of us remember the great partnership we had through the North American Mission Board in Vermont, from 2012 through 2018.  Do we do that again; do we do something similar in another locale; do we investigate opportunities through existing networks?  I am unapologetically in favor of having a “Samaria” partnership (within an eight-hour drive or so) and an “ends of the earth” partnership abroad (Acts 1:8).  I am so thankful that we have so many high-quality “Jerusalem” and “Judea” partnerships already (after all, I am building a menu!).  One of our Deacons, whose Rolodex is thick, has made some contacts in a Caribbean nation.  We heard about what that opportunity could involve, and prayed that God would give us wisdom as we discern this, and asked God to either slam this door in our face or blow it open for us to walk through.

I am so profoundly grateful that THESE are the things being discussed in YOUR Deacons’ meetings.  These are the things our church needs to be discussing.  These are the kinds of things that ought to be on all of our minds.  If we are going to be a refuge that makes and sends disciples, we need to be growing and equipping one another as carriers of the Good News, such that we can carry it where God is leading us to carry it (by the way, this may be a corporate effort with teams and ministry groups, but this may also involve individual callings/efforts).  Not only am I profoundly thankful for this being what we discussed (fear not, we have never neglected the “ash and trash” too), I am also profoundly thankful for those discussing it.  I had a pretty good idea already what was in the hearts of these Deacons, but it was so refreshing to hear from their hearts in that April meeting.  THIS is the kind of leader our church needs; this is the kind of leader God’s Kingdom needs!  May God bless us as we raise up a new generation of leaders whose hearts are like this!  Over the past decade, we have nearly completely shed the use of “board”.  To be clear, our Deacons do not serve as a Board of Directors, nor do they want to.  They want to “deac”, in the biblical sense; they are first and foremost servants, servants of the flock, and servants of Jesus.  I have many peers who do not enjoy Deacons’ meetings; I tell them how much I love ours, and why.  Join me, join your Deacons, join your staff, in praying over these matters, that God would reveal to us where He’d have us to go.  May we follow His leadership, and be the proclaimers of the Good News that He calls us all to be!

O God of might, o Son of light, o Holy Spirit sweet,
Thy Church expand ‘til all shall stand at Jesus’ pierc-ed feet;
let all who once Thy Son disowned, rejoice to see Him now enthroned,
yet while one straying soul there be, send me, o Lord, send me!
--A.J.