January 19, 2006
Dear Resurrection Family,
I'm writing this e-mail late Wednesday night - I have just arrived home from youth group where we have had our grand opening of the new Student Center. It was awesome! I'll tell you more about this below. I also want to extend thanks to those of you who sent notes and cards and telephoned Paul Palmer with his illness and extended stay in the hospital. He went home, only to return this week in need of a follow-up surgery this Friday. Paul is on our facilities staff and has served at Resurrection for years. I saw him in the hospital Wednesday afternoon and he told me how much your notes and calls had meant to him and asked that I please convey his thanks.
Here's what you'll find in today's e-mail:
1. New Student Center Opens - 813 Students in Attendance!
2. This Weekend in Worship: The Misfits and Ragamuffins Jesus Called
3. A Revival at Resurrection?
4. Rev. Pat Robertson, Mayor Ray Nagan and the Providence of God
1. New Student Center Opens - 813 Students in Attendance!
On Wednesday night we opened our new Student Center. It was awesome. We had 518 middle school youth in the first hour, and 295 senior high youth in the second hour - 813 teenagers all together. Our weekly youth attendance at all of our various youth ministry programs will be in excess of 1,300 kids this week (some of these kids are involved in more than one activity). There was such excitement, and a lot of new kids. We also had somewhere around 90 youth sponsors.
The pizza and soft drinks flowed; the kids played basketball, did a bit of skateboarding, and had dozens of video games, pool, foosball, Ping-Pong and DDR to play. When it came time for the program they gathered in front of the stage and our incredible youth band led them in loud and powerful songs of worship and celebration. Every student I talked to said they'd be back next week.
Next week I'll speak from James on temptation. We did a survey a couple of weeks ago asking kids to tell us about the things they are most tempted by - we'll be talking about this and then looking at how we resist temptation.
We've been preparing Digging Deeper guides for the students - daily study guides to encourage students to read the Bible daily on their own and to do a bit of journaling. I want to commend the following students who brought their study guides back this week having studied the Bible daily last week: Brett Hildebrand, Staci Ford, Jimmy Cochran, Kristen Pflumm, Mary Requena, Elyse Byram, Danielle Sartain, Hannah Elding, Natalie Heslop, Kyle Stalcup, Kailyn Keplinger, Eliott Brady. If I missed any others, I'm sorry. I know there are a number of students who told me they are doing this daily but forgot to bring in their guides.
One last word about our student ministry: this Friday Jason Gant joins our staff as our new Director of Student Ministries. We'll introduce him in youth group this coming week. He comes to us having led a tremendous student ministry at St. Luke's UMC in Orlando, Florida. We have just hired Julie Frazier as our new Associate Director of Student Ministries. In this role she will over see our Middle School Ministry. She comes to us having led an amazing student ministry at Christ UMC in Sugar Land, Texas. These join a terrific team of staff and volunteers we already have in place.
God has amazing things in store for our student ministries. I want to thank all of you who gave sacrificially in our last capital campaign to make possible the new student center as well as the reduction of our long-term debt on our facility. Your sacrifices will be bearing tremendous fruit in the years to come. Thank you!
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2. This Weekend in Worship: The Misfits and Ragamuffins Jesus Called
This weekend we'll be continuing our focus on Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. Having studied Jesus' baptism and his central message about the Kingdom of God, this week we turn to the misfits and ragamuffins he called to be his disciples. I love this about Jesus - that he called people no one else would have asked to be the founding members of such a movement - this weekend we'll see how and why he called four fisherman and a tax collector to form the nucleus of his disciples, and what his choice of disciples tells us about him, and about us. I have enjoyed studying the stories of the calling of the disciples this week - I think you'll enjoy this as well. In addition, we'll be sharing with you a bit of film footage from the Sea of Galilee - if you are curious about the places Jesus ministered, I think you'll enjoy this. Join us this weekend as we continue to learn more about Jesus by studying the Gospel of Mark.
Some churches regularly hold revival meetings - special opportunities to worship and to grow in faith. We're offering something of a revival coming up a week from this Friday and Saturday at The Summit. Here's what you will enjoy by being a part of this special event: A fellowship dinner, a 45 minute worship/concert with Lance and the band, followed by a time of teaching in which I'll be speaking on Matters of the Heart: Christian Leadership from Paul's Letter to the Philippians. Friday evening will conclude by 9:45 pm. On Saturday we'll gather for breakfast, enjoy a time of music from our youth choir and orchestra, followed by our Church Conference with a special word from our District Superintendent and then a time in which we'll look at where our church is going in the future before concluding with worship and Holy Communion - we'll be done by 11:15 am. If you would like your soul revived and your vision renewed, don't miss this opportunity. The cost is $10 in advance - you can register on line by clicking on the following link: http://www.cor.org/The_Summit_2006.2589.0.html
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4. Rev. Pat Robertson, Mayor Ray Nagan and the Providence of God
A couple of weeks ago Pat Robertson suggested God sent Ariel Sharon a stroke because he was brokering a peace plan in Israel that included removing Jewish settlers from Palestinian territories. This week Mayor Ray Nagan of New Orleans suggested God was angry with the folks in New Orleans and thus had sent them Hurricane Katrina. On the flip side, last year, when Billy Graham stumbled and broke his hip, I heard some area believers suggest this was the work of Satan, trying to keep Billy Graham from coming to Kansas City.
What do you think? Do bad things come from God as punishment for sin, or from Satan to keep us from serving God? How do you know the difference? What if you said Satan was the cause of something God was really doing; or if you attributed to God something Satan was doing?
This weekend half of all the NFL teams in the playoffs will lose. Did God will they lose? Will this be punishment for some sin a given coach or player committed; or will it be Satan's attack on the believing people of that city? Is it possible the team that plays harder, that is more talented, or that gets a few breaks in the area of penalty calls will win?
The question of how God works in the world is an area of theology called, "providence" - how God provides for and works in our world. Here's what I think: Not everything that happens happens because either God or Satan are causing it to happen - this idea, that either God or Satan is the cause of every event is, I believe, a distortion of the truth. We are not pawns being moved about on the chessboard of life by either the Lord or the devil. God gave us the capacity to make decisions, to act freely, to do good or harm, to make wise decisions or foolish ones. Likewise, we live in a world in which there are forces of nature that are at least moderately predictable - we know when hurricane season is, and what forces cause hurricanes, and approximately where they will strike. Likewise our bodies are frail, subject to occasional blood clots, which can break loose and cause strokes. We understand the process and why this happens.
Secondly, I don't believe God, who in Jesus Christ came to save sinners - who, as Jesus described him, is like the father of the prodigal child - needs to resort to disabling people with strokes or destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and leaving elderly and helpless people to die in floodwaters in order to express his displeasure. Could God do the things Mayor Nagan and Pat Robertson suggest? Yes, God can do anything God chooses - but it is the nature of God to love and, unless such acts could be demonstrated to be the result of God's love, I would be very cautious about attributing them to God. More than that, I believe it demonstrates tremendous arrogance, or ignorance, to suggest we know so well the mind of God that we can attribute such an act to God. In attributing these things to God it is likely that we will discredit God in the eyes of others and bring harm through our theological statements.
Consider if I were to say of you that you had struck another person in the head and caused irreparable brain damage. If you had done this, you would likely be imprisoned for it, for this would be considered a criminal act. If you had not done it, you would consider what I had done in accusing you of such a thing to be slander; yet this is the very thing Pat Robertson has said of God in attributing Sharon's stroke to God. It may be that when God forbids our "taking God's name in vain" it is as much about making inappropriate statements about God as using God's name to swear (which I also think is inappropriate).
I am grateful Pat Robertson has publicly apologized for his comments; and I think Mayor Nagan is a man with his plate full and he is probably not as cautious as he should be with theological pronouncements. But their statements present a great opportunity to consider what you believe about God's providence. If you are interested in thinking about this further, you might enjoy listening to a series of three messages I preached several years ago entitled, "Where Was God When...The Problem of Evil and the Providence of God." These are available from The Well - our bookstore.
Well, that's all for today. Next week I'll share with you a few of my favorite web sites for research and reflection on the Gospel.
See you in Worship!
Adam Hamilton