Never Will I Leave You (Part 1)

Nathan Stam
Children/Communications Pastor

The following is adapted from a sermon by Dennis Johnson on Hebrews 13:5-14 that deals with change and I thought it would be appropriate for us to consider as we transition from Phil (who was with us for 28 years) to a new Lead Pastor.

Change is difficult. It takes us out of our comfort zone and ushers in the unknown. Even for the self-professed "change lovers" (like me!) there is still stress involved whether the change is pleasant or painful.

In fact, psychologists have assigned numeric value to the stress caused by different kinds of change. It doesn't matter whether it's getting married, losing a loved one, buying a new home, having a new baby or going through a divorce--all change involves some sort of stress. And if we rack up enough of those "stress points" we start to go into melt-down.

The book of Hebrews was written to a congregation of Jewish Christians who were going into melt-down because of change. They were experiencing change in two different ways:

1. They had grown up in Judaism with its temple centered worship and now they were Christians with Jesus centered worship. (They could no longer touch and feel and see the sacrifices. They were now being fed by the Word of God as their pastors proclaimed the Good News into their lives.) Because of this change, or conversion, they were also experiencing persecution from their family and friends. They were shunned because they believed Jesus was the Messiah.
2. This Hebrew congregation was also experiencing a change in leadership. There was a shift happening from one generation of leaders to the next. And evidently, this new generation of leadership was not receiving the respect of the congregation, which their office deserved. Perhaps the people were saying things like, "We like how Pastor so-and-so used to do things back in the day." Or, "These new guys don't do things like we've always done them." Whatever the reason, there was conflict in the midst of a change of leadership.

So, in the book of Hebrews the Holy Spirit tells us how we should respond to change and how we should not respond to change as a fellowship or a local church.

We should not respond to change in two ways based on the text:

1. Retreat from change by clinging to the past.
2. Try to insulate ourselves from change through money.

We should respond to change in the following way: Focus our thoughts and rest our hearts on Jesus, our ever-living, never-leaving leader.

(In the next installment we'll take a deeper look at the two wrong ways to respond to change based on Hebrews.)

Giving It Away

Nathan Stam
Communications/Children's Pastor

The past few Tuesday nights we've been going through Christian Financial Institute as a Fellowship. I know about money about as much as I know the rules of hockey (which would be not at all) so it's been helpful to me as I try to be a faithful steward and to provide for my family in the future.

I know after reading through the New Testament Gospels that Jesus talked about money a lot. 11 of His 39 parables deal with money and for good reason. Our attitudes toward money in a lot of ways reflect our attitude towards God. In Luke 12 Jesus gives the Parable of the Rich Fool. This man seems to wisely prepare for the future with his finances and possessions, but he doesn't take into account the truth that God is the Owner of all things--including our life, breath and everything else--that his goal should be to be rich towards God and not to build bigger barns. The man's life is taken from him and God exclaims, "You fool! The things you have prepared--whose will they be?"

Jesus goes on to say, "That's how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God...For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Where is my heart? Is it rich toward God? Is it anxious after money? After things and possessions? After all this, here's the question I have to ask myself: "How am I using my money?"

I used to love Rich Mullins in college (and still do). I think he is a genius musician and song-writer. Plus, he was an excellent feather-ruffler! I remember hearing that Rich was heavily influenced by St. Francis of Assisi and while he could have made bundles of money for himself in the CCM world here is what he did with his income: The profits from his tours and his albums went to his church, which divided it up, paid him the average salary in the U.S. for that year, and gave the rest away to various charities. I remember seeing him in concert and he wore blue jeans, a white t-shirt and went barefoot. Not a lot of bling with Rich.

So, could I get to the point where I give more away than I keep for myself? By the way, here's a video clip of Rich if you've never heard or seen him.