A Glimpse of Sunday, June 24 & Building Update

Smart People–No Faith?

            Living in New England, in particularly New Hampshire, has given me the dubious distinction of being in the region that has the fewest people attending church in the nation. The greater Boston area, I believe, has the most colleges and universities in a given area in the country, with the highest number of college students. National surveys have indicated that the higher the education level, the less likely a person is of being a follower of Jesus.

            I enjoy the intelligent people in our church. I definitely do not understand some of the things they talk about. It gets into the stratosphere of comprehension pretty quickly with some of the engineers who have PhD’s and talk physics and electronics. Fortunately, they also are some of the ones who love God deeply and have a strong faith. And I admire their intelligence and their faith and glad to call them my friends and brothers in Christ.

            But I have also had discussions with other intelligent people in the community where it seems like their intellect become a hindrance for them to understand the simple good news of Jesus. And there does seem to be a correlation between higher IQ and lower faith. So what do we do?

            Do we simply write off intellectual people from our list of whom we pray for and seek to witness to? Do we give up on anyone that has an IQ of 125 or more? If our child scores in the highly gifted category of one of the IQ tests they use in school, should we feel doomed that our child is less likely to become a follower of Christ? Or do we commit to pray twice as hard for them to overcome a potential to become more skeptical of the faith?

            Jesus did spend more time with people who were not college educated, but that was because of the world in Jesus’ time. Most people were farmers, shepherds, fishermen and common folk. Women rarely got the chance to go to school and develop their mental potential. But Jesus did not hesitate to talk to intelligent people. It is probably true that then, as now, fewer of the educated people believed in Jesus. Some of Jesus’ fiercest critics were the educated religious leaders. But that didn’t stop Jesus from reaching out to them. In fact, in the early church, it says that a large number of priests became followers of Jesus (Acts 6:7). Their education and training didn’t stop them from understanding the truth.

            But it is probably true that the smarter a person is, the more we can become intimidated by their learning. They may ask harder questions about why we believe Jesus is the only true Son of God; why Jesus is supposedly the only way to God; why there is evil in the world, and so forth. They may ask those questions, but not always. And those same questions often come from people who would not be classified as intellectuals.

            Jesus had a discussion one night with a towering intellectual. His name was Nicodemus. Nic was one of the leading teachers of his day. He was a Pharisee, which meant he was a part of an elite group of religious zealots, who lived to figure out how to keep God’s laws and never come close to breaking any of them. Think Green Beret of priests. He was also a member of the Sanhedrin, which was like Parliament in England. It was a group of 70 people who governed the religious show in all of Israel. If anyone would be a skeptic, it would be Nic.

            Jesus had an interesting conversation with him that night. And how Jesus interacted with him will help us know how we can interact with those in our circles who are intelligent. That night conversation is going to be the focus of my sermon this Sunday as we look at Jesus and Nicodemus. You’ll come away with the confidence that God can use you to talk to anyone, even those who might be smarter than you.

Building Update

            Close. City inspectors arrived this week to inspect the plumbing, electrical, and construction parts of the building. They have liked what they have seen, and we are getting close to the final approval. So, we look ahead to next and say, Maybe next week we’ll get the final OK.

Fathers Who Are Not Perfect - A glimpse of Sunday, June 17

The Myth of Perfect Fathers  

            How did children ever turn out to be law-abiding, Christ-following, responsible members of society before we had organizations like Focus on the Family, Family Builders and the plethora of other organizations, books and seminars? And, with all the resources we have today, why do we have such problems with dysfunctional and fractured families?

            There is no simple answer to either question. However, there is an indispensable factor for both. We had fathers who were involved in families in times past, and there is a glaring absence of many biological or functioning fathers in homes today.

            Fathers of past generations didn’t really have an edge over fathers today. They didn’t have seminars to help them be a great dad. They didn’t listen on their iPod to messages on fathers. They pretty much carried an example of their father and did for their children what their father did for them. But I think one big difference was that fathers were there in the family. They didn’t up and leave when they got tired of their responsibility. They didn’t jump from one live-in girlfriend to another. They knew their role and sought to be a father first and did not worry about whether their child considered them a buddy.

            I think there was also, especially to boys, a clearer sense and example of father-hero growing up. Maybe that’s because newspapers didn’t probe deep enough to dig up the dirt on people, or they were more constrained in what they reported. You didn’t have the pervasive paparazzi ready to shoot an embarrassing, unheroic picture at a moment’s notice whenever a hero-type person went out in public.

            In any case, what many children are lacking today is a strong, godly father. And what many men are lacking is a strong, godly example of a father.

            When you look around to see whom to pattern oneself after, you are visually plastered with a long list of men you would not want to emulate. How many Hollywood men and athletes are leaving a trail of kids with different mothers in their wake? Then you have some seemingly good examples, like Brad Pitt, but do we want our children to live with someone for eight years and have three children (plus Angelina’s adopted three)  before they finally decide now is the time to, at least, get engaged?

            It is easy to point the finger at bad examples and fathers with faults. I do that every morning when I look in the mirror. But we do have one perfect Father to use as an example. And that is God. It is interesting that God chose to use the term, “father”, to express one of his key roles to those who believe in him. And that term is more than just a name. It is a role that God fulfills with us.

            It is too bad that today, for so many boys and girls, their perception of God as Father is taken from their earthly father. It’s no wonder why teens who have grown up in the church walk away and never return, and others never venture to church in the first place. Who would want to have a relationship with God if he is like one’s earthly father?

            But because God is perfect as Father, and because he has chosen to express his relationship with us as our Heavenly Father, there is tremendous hope and encouragement to every person. First, for us who are fathers, there is his example that we can follow to understand what it means to be a father and how a father acts with his children. He can show us how to do it.

Then there is the relationship itself that God has with us as our Heavenly Father. That is not just a polite term we use to refer to him. It is God himself who is a Father to us and acts as a Father to us. The father wound that so many men and women carry because of imperfect earthly fathers, can be healed by our Heavenly Father as he carries out his role as Father to us.

            So with this Sunday being Fathers’ Day, we can look to our perfect, Heavenly Father, to be what we need for us: an example of a perfect Father to pattern our father role after, or a giver to help fill what we didn’t receive from our earthly Father.

            The message this Sunday will feature our perfect, Heavenly Father. Come to learn; come to receive.

Building Update

Workers continue to finish additional details on the building. The large kitchen exhaust fan unit is ready to be installed. The paving construction crew has cut out sections of the asphalt and prepared the area around the front entrance for paving. The plumbers have installed all the sinks and toilets and turned on the water in the bathrooms. Some lights are in, but more are still coming before that is done. We are almost ready to have the city come and give us the final approval. A few pictures that show the progress are below.

The giant exhaust-fan kitchen unit on its side and looking at its underside.

Ready to pave.

The Women's Bathroom

A Glimpse of Sunday, June 10 & Building Update

Where are we going?

            I hate being lost when I am driving. I hate it even more when I am a passenger and the driver was supposed to know where we were going and how to get there. Directions are helpful for getting us to a destination. But the bigger question is why I wanted to go to that particular location in the first place. Both are needed, of course. You may know where you want to go and why you want to get there. But if you don’t have directions, you’ll never make it. Or, you may know the directions to get to a place, but once you are there, you may wonder why you bothered to go there.

            It’s no different for a church. Where are we headed as a church? Why are we going to do certain things? Even with those questions answered, directions, in the form of a plan, are needed to get there.

            This Sunday is the Sunday in which I give my State of the Church address in the morning, and then in the evening, we have our annual business meeting. I think this day is important every year. If gives me a chance to reflect on the past year, and then ask God to guide my thoughts as I look ahead to the next year and seek what he wants us to emphasize and focus on in the coming year. It gives me a sense of where we are going and why we are going there. And I like to pass that on to our church.

            In the morning sermon, I’ll build off our mission statement to help people see a clear pathway that will help them become more a part of Trinity and will help them to know how to develop their spiritual life in a deeper way. It’ll combine the where and the why with the directions.

            This year’s business meeting brings the anticipation of approving the new church name that we have selected. For people who haven’t voted yet, we are keeping the voting opportunity open until after the morning service. That will add to the suspense, because no one will know what the name to be presented will be until we actually vote in the evening. You’ll have to be there to find it out since I won’t give it out ahead of time!

            The other important issue that we will present at the annual meeting is a recap and explanation of the building costs. We want everyone to hear how things have gone with the costs, and there will be time for questions.

Almost Done!

            Some of the final parts are now in and making our building look just about finished. The bathrooms have their tile in and the stalls up. The kitchen floor is almost done. All the doors are now in. But the biggest transformation has been that the carpet is now in in the lobby and auditorium. We still have lights to receive that are on order and the plumbing needs to get done, along with the final electrical connections in some spots. Maybe by the end of next week, we could get our certificate of occupancy from the city, which means we are good to go. Here are a few pictures to show you what awaits you this Sunday.