16 Reasons to Be at Christ Presbyterian Church Easter Sunday

• You will be among friends.

• Celebrations are good!

• Your spirit will be up-lifted.

• You will be accepted here - no matter what you wear.

• You will be welcomed here - no matter what you’ve done.

• You will be welcomed here - no matter where you’ve been.

• You will be accepted here - no matter what you may have said.

• There will be familiarity to the service - presented in an informal fashion with full explanation of what to do when.

• Easter breaks through religious rituals to reveal the birth of a whole new way of doing things.

• You can help CPC break out of old odes of being church and reinvent a new church model more suitable for the 21st century.

• You might find new meaning and purpose for your life.

• You won’t be as lonely as you otherwise might be.

• You certainly will be appreciated.

• You would be listened to - and heard.

• Your presence would give hope to all others present.

• Where else, besides your car or shower, will you get to sing out loud?

Be with us Sunday, April 8 at 10:00 am in the Presbyterian Chapel in Drexel Hill on Turner Avenue at State Road.

Easter!!!

The single most significant event of our faith-history will happen again this year – just like it did last year and the year before!

The poet calls it “the sun’s birthday...
the birthday of life and of love and wings! ....
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened!)”

Since that first Easter morning some 2000 years ago, folks have continued to celebrate what their eyes and ears could not believe – what all of human experience told them was totally impossible.

It seems to me that it is easy to loose sight of what happened that day – and what continues to happen in our days  (for that is the message and the promise and the reason, after all, for our faith).

The reality is that we are a resurrection people. 
Prior to that day there were no Christians.

So we do celebrate Easter as a birthday of sorts. 
The birthday of life itself – no longer confined to temporal physics – life that transcends the boundaries of space and time and even death. 

So we savor symbols like the butterfly and lily and pomegranate and mustard seed which must die before they live. 
For the word is out that we, too, can expect the sprouting of new life when our time comes.

And that’s good news, isn’t it?

Easter is a huge birthday party for us as we celebrate the discovery and revelation of the true nature of our God – and of ourselves.

Once a year we focus on tending the ears of our ears and the eyes of our eyes to become more awake and more open to observing and celebrating the presence of Christ in our world, in our lives, today.   

We do this, because like those early disciples, we so often look for love and truth and meaning in all the wrong places. 
When they found the tomb empty, God’s messenger asked “Why do you look for the living here among the dead?” 
That question is asked of us, as well. 

Either we don’t know where to look, or we are afraid to look in the right places.  
We need to come together,  hone our skills of discernment and celebrate the ultimate revelation.

This prayer is posted above my desk:
 
    He is risen! 
    That through Him we may recover faith:
    faith in ourselves,
    faith in our world,
    faith in our God.

    He is risen!
    That in Him we may rekindle hope:
    hope for the abandoned,
    hope for the despairing,
    home for the dreamless.

    He is risen!
    That in Him we may restore love:
    love to those from whom
    we have kept it,
    love to those who are most near us,
    love to those we will never meet.

    He is risen!
 
Easter is about discovering sparks of the Divine within ourselves and in our daily lives. 

My hope is that through our celebration together, Easter will so inform your life this year that you will know with surety, that you are a child of God, no less than anyone who has ever gone before, beloved of the Center of the universe and the Creator of life itself.

This Easter let us come to thank God for this most amazing day in celebration of Christ’s continuing presence with us.

See you in church  –  and bring someone with you.

Thinking About Faith During Lent

Traditionally, Christians have taken time before Easter to think on things spiritual.

Taking clues from Jesus who before beginning his ministry took a 40 day hiatus, the church has set aside this amount of time during this season when the days lengthen to concentrate on how the faith we profess affects the life we lead.

Through the years, people have used different tools to encourage such thoughts. 

Recalling that the Bible says that Jesus fasted for 40 days, many people choose a form of that to help place them in the proper mindset to receive and perceive spiritual thoughts.

The idea of “giving something up” for Lent became a substitute for an all-out fast for Westerners living in an increasingly secular society.

But, we all know that negative behavior in itself does little to stimulate Spiritual thoughts.  

And, far more important than giving up something for Lent is a proactive behavior specifically designed to encourage thoughts about our faith and the life we lead.

And, so each of us is encouraged to do something specific during this time before Easter:

    •   read a book,  (Meeting  Jesus Again for the First Time, by Marcus Borg, will certainly  generate thoughts and stimulate conversation with others)

    •  use a daily devotional guide to help stimulate your thoughts, (if you already  use one on a regular basis,  add another specifically designed to stimulate new thoughts for the season.  I am preparing a devotional guide to be distributed each week during our worship service.  Each is designed to put into practice specific actions Jesus often spoke about   – actions that will enhance your life and help you live your life to the fullest.)  

    • pray (set aside a certain time each day,  or place a post-it-note with the word “PRAY” on your computer or in a prominent place to remind you that the proper time to pray is any time, all the time)

    • do something for others  you  have not done before (perhaps write a note to people on  your Christmas card list –  just think what the recipient  will think  when they hear from  you from “out of the blue”,   so to speak)

    • Come to church every Sunday  until Easter as our services will be designed to  explore How to Live Your Life to the Fullest. 
The first week we will look at the importance of taking time to take a time out – each day – for a season.  
(Through our website on the internet you can also sign up to receive daily devotional e-mails to help guide you through the daily time-outs.)

Whatever you choose to do, I encourage you to choose to do something during this season. 

You will find your faith stimulated and your life enhanced.

This season, this Lent, can be of tremendous significance to you – if you let it, if you participate in it.

Between now and Easter, see you in church . . .

Celebrating 85 Years Past - And Looking Ahead

The past 85 years have seen wars and rumors of wars, faltering economies, uncertain times, and changing populations – and through it all, the community of Christ continued and witnessed and worked and worshiped. 

There is no way those 47 folks who gathered in 1927 to start a new church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, could have foreseen all that was to befall them and their neighbors. 
But, they had a vision. 
They had a belief. 
A church was needed. 

And what about us?

85 years from now what will be said about us?  

I know, there are some among us who say, “Who cares?” 

Then, I think:
85 years ago, there were people who cared.

Time was, folks here had a vision.
Time was, folks here had a belief.
Time was, folks here were convinced that a church was needed in their neighborhood.
But, what about now? 

The opportunity is for us to capture a vision that we can believe in:
a vision that projects out into the days and years ahead.

Oh, the church of tomorrow may not look like the church of yesterday. 
The church of tomorrow may include shared ministerial leadership.
The church of tomorrow may use different space to worship in and to conduct ministry out of.
The church of tomorrow may include younger and younger people as well as older and older people.
The church of tomorrow will certainly rely on the internet more and more.
 
I invite you to join me in conjuring a vision of Christ Church for tomorrow:
a vision that we can believe in,
a vision that will inform our work and witness here in the days ahead.

Over the course of the past year, I have been writing and speaking about Vision 2012.

With the new year and the culmination of the sale of our building, it is time to think seriously about the future ministry of Christ Presbyterian Church:
    what might it look like?
        where might it be?
            what might it mean (for you and me and whoever else we might be serving)?

My hope is that by the time the next new year rolls around, we would have a pretty clear vision of what this ministry (or ministries) might look like, and even be on our way implementing the new vision.

I firmly believe that our faith has a message for all of the folks around us. 
People need what we have to give.  
People need to hear what we have to say.

Not only do people need what we have to offer, but we have a stake in offering. 
We have an obligation to enable all people to be more fully who God intends for them to be. 
It’s a Christ-like thing to do.

I am reminded that when Norman Vincent Peale first went to the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, he preached to 40 or 50 people each Sunday morning. 
After about six months, he told his wife that people needed to hear what the faith has to say,
if they won’t come to hear it, he would have to get it to them in other ways.
And so he wrote, and published, and spoke in public forums at every opportunity.
Of course, a by-product of getting the word out to everyone is that more people will come.

Norman Vincent Peale realized that Marble Collegiate Church had to reinvent itself in order to continue to be in ministry.  
And they did.  
And the rest is history as countless millions of people all over the world have been influenced by their work.

This is our time of opportunity here at Christ Presbyterian Church.

We need everyone praying for this church and the vision that might revealed to us about what our ministry may look like in the years ahead.

Please commit yourself to take time to pray. 

And as ideas come to you, jot them down and send them to your pastor.

See you in Church . . .

Now The Work of Christmas Begins

When the song of the angels is stilled,

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with the flocks,

then the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal those broken in spirit,

to feed the hungry,

to release the oppressed,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among all peoples,

to make a little music with the heart…

And to radiate the Light of Christ,

every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.

Then the work of Christmas begins.

-- Howard Thurman, adapted

Chirstmas Happens Each Day - Over and Over Again

Christmas is about incarnation - it is about Emmanuel - God being with us - today - each and every day.
It is not something that comes just once a year - it happens each day over and over again.

And that is something to celebrate!

Oh, sure, we may not always know how to celebrate Emmanuel in our lives each and every day, 

but our task is to keep our eyes open so we recognize it when we see it.

You know, if I heard it once, I heard it a hundred times this year.
Usually it was said in a crowd of people -
sometimes in the check out line,
sometimes in a crowded aisle -
invariably some person with a harried look on their face would turn to me and say, "Thank goodness Christmas comes only once a year!"

I would usually offer a sympathetic smile -
perhaps a manly grunt or two -
but I never thought the setting appropriate for me to launch into a diatribe
about the benefits of considering alternative celebrations more in tune with tenets of our faith.

But, that is where my mind would go.
For Christmas is about incarnation - it is about Emmanuel - God being with us - today - each and every day.
It is not something that comes just once a year - it happens each day over and over
again.

For two or three hundred years, Protestants were so taken by this point that Christmas day was not celebrated at all.

In fact, many American colonies had laws banning the practice.

By putting all of our emphasis on one particular day commemorating a event that happened long ago, we lose an important part of our faith understanding and it is easy to get lost in the hoopla of the culture around us.

It is a little easier to keep a proper perspective by celebrating what the church calls the
Christmas Season - twelve days of Christmas: beginning December 25 and continuing until January 6.

There were periods of time in our family when we found special things to do each day of Christmas to remind us that Emmanuel is about now - not just a story about then.

Folks in some cultures exchange a gift each day during the twelve days of Christmas.

Folks in other cultures spend twelve days visiting friends and family members - ostensibly looking for the Christ child as did those wise men from the East in our sacred story.

Others spend each day during the Christmas season finding things to do for others - remembering Jesus' admonishment that we are to do for the less fortunate among us.

Whatever we do in this time before The Epiphany, we are reminded that Christmas really does not come but once a year -
but, continues to happen again and again now and into all the tomorrows to come.

And that is something to celebrate!

Oh, sure, we may not always know how to celebrate Emmanuel in our lives each and every day, but our task is to keep our eyes open so we recognize it when we see it.

This takes some training and practice, of course.

But, I am convinced, it happens.

Let one of our resolutions for the new year be to live as though Christmas was real and continues every day our lives.

That's worth celebrating, don't you think?

As for me and my house, we will continue to relate to others as though they are Christ incognito.

If you can, join us each Sunday to hone our skills at recognizing the hidden Christ around us.

If you can't join us, pray for us - as we will for you.

See you in church.

Advent: A Time of Expectancy

What are you expecting for Christmas this year?

Probably not much, huh?

Especially these days with a general malaise pervading our world, 

the war drums pounding louder and louder, 

the seemingly unending threats from terrorism, the economic doldrums, 

and the years and years of Christmases past, 

most of us will approach Christmas this year with low or no expectation.  

While the world around us views these days before Christmas as a time for buying gifts and parties and entertaining, the Christian church calls this a time of Advent – a time of expectancy.

“The coming of the Lord has been the inspiration of the Christian world.  

The power of any life lies in its expectancy.”  
These words were written some 200 years ago by Phillips Brooks, 

who also wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem”;  but, they are pertinent today:
The power of any life lies in its expectancy. 

What you expect affects what you see.
What you expect affects what you experience.

Expect the worst, and you usually find it, don’t you?

But, the thing is, there are always surprises, aren’t there?

During these days before Christmas, our Advent season, we will be looking at stories in our faith that are about expectancy – and surprise. 

For us, Christmas is about surprise. 
It is about the presence of Emmanuel – God With Us. 
In the stories we remember and read and tell at Christmas, almost everyone is surprised, aren’t they? 

Mary was surprised. 
Joseph was surprised. 
The Shepherds were surprised.  

The folks in Bethlehem were surprised. 
The political leaders of the day were surprised. 
Even the wise men were surprised.  

(Perhaps the only ones who were not surprised were Old Anna and Old Simeon who lived with the complete expectation that they would see and experience Emmanuel in their lifetimes.)

You see, we remember and celebrate Christmas because of Emmanuel – a concept so radical and so surprising that it affects our entire world-view. 

Our Christmas stories confirm that God’s ways are mysterious.  

God really does seem to prefer to be incognito.  

This seems to have been true 2000 years ago.  

And it seems to be true today, doesn’t it?

For me, our primary task during Advent is to point to signs of the presence of this incognito Emmanuel in our world and lives today. 
Our Advent theme song could be: “Where, O where is Emmanuel?  Where, O where can he be?”

Like that children’s game, Where’s Waldo?, let us hone our discernment skills so we can see Emmanuel in these days and times of our lives.

During these Sundays ahead, we will tell the stories from our faith-history –  

stories you will hear no where else! 
These are stories we need to hear, again and again.
These are the stories our children need to hear, and our children’s children need to hear!
These are stories that speak to what we may expect to experience –

if we only knew where and how to look.

Where else are these stories being told today? 
Not on TV.   

Not in school.   

Not in many family gatherings. 
It is so important to make church a part of our schedule – 

especially at this time of year.
[Yes, I think there should be a rule: no opening of presents until after the Christmas Eve Candlelight service of stories and songs.]

The power of any life lies in its expectancy. 
Expect more.  

Expect God to be with us in our malaise.

Our God is with us!

Don’t miss his presence this year!

See you in church,