Week of August 28 of Pentecost

Rev. Campbell continues on his vacation this week.  Please continue to keep him and his family in your prayers.

Here are some of the headlines for the week:

WELCOME AND THANK YOU TO HAL SCOTT AND NILE GOMEZ:  This coming Sunday we welcome with much appreciation Hal Scott and Nile Gomez who will serve as celebrant and preacher, respectively.   Thank you also to Doris Gomez who will assist with welcoming, introductions and announcements.

THANK YOU FOR THE WELCOME AND SUPPORT EXTENDED TO JENNIFER BROWN as she begins her work as Director of Children and Family Ministry.  Additional copies of her introduction letter are available at the entrance to the sanctuary.  Jennifer is working on organizing the rooms and facilities for the variety of age groups.  Parents of Sunday School-aged children are welcome to join the Sunday School class on September 7, where breakfast will be served.  After worship services, Mike Mabrey invites parents of youth-aged children to join him for a planning session.  There will also be a meeting of home and small group leaders after worship with Rev. Campbell.

And, we have something to add to our wish-list:  If anyone has a bulletin board to donate, it would be very much appreciated.  
Contact Jennifer  the office.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD BABY MABREY:  Jennifer has set-up a meal planner on TakeThemAMeal.com.  If you are able to participate, please log-on and make your entry.  Thank you to those who have already signed up.   Go to http://www.TakeThemAMeal.com
Recipient Last Name: Mabrey   Password: Baby

THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO HAVE ASKED ABOUT THE RWANDA SLIDESHOW:  We hope to post something on the website soon.  Special thanks to Keith Andrus for working on setting that up.

REMINDER TO PLEASE PLAN TO ATTEND SEPTEMBER 7 when Emily-Louise and Jennifer will be commissioned during the worship service.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE ON YOUR CALENDAR SEPTEMBER 12-14 — THE WEEKEND WITH BISHOP STEVE AND SALLY BREEDLOVE AND NILE’S ORDINATION.  On Saturday at 7:00 PM everyone is encouraged to attend a Coffee and Desert reception in the Fellowship Hall where there will be opportunity to meet and greet the Bishop and his wife.   The visit will culminate on Sunday with a very special service:  the Ordination to the Deaconate of Nile Gomez

ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE IS BACK!  Hank has prepared a poster about this program and you are encouraged to take a look.  Teaching ESL is an important part of the international student ministry.  Hank will be teaching the one-hour class effective September 7 on Sundays at 3 PM at the ODU Perry Library, Collaboration Rm 7.   

MORE CHAIRS:  Oh what a cheerful, full house we had on Wednesday when about 50 new chairs arrived.  Thank you to everyone who was able to and did answer Janie’s call for help in bringing in and setting up this new furniture.  Even the workers out on 37th Street gave a hand.  

AND LAST, BUT YET A FEAST:   Pot-Luck is this coming Sunday, August 31.  Please participate.  

As Rev. Brian said in his email before vacation:  
Let us be prayerfully expectant as we come to the end of the summer. 
Let us be open and responsive to the Spirit’s prompting and leading. 
Let us always be about seeking the King and the extension of his Kingdom!
May the peace of God be with us all.

 

Week of August 21 of Pentecost

Rev. Campbell started his vacation this week.  Please keep him and his family in your prayers that they me be nourished by leisure time.


Here are some of the headlines for the week:

WELCOME AND THANK YOU TO DAN WATERMAN AND CHARLIE WATKINS:  This coming Sunday we welcome with much appreciation Dan Waterman and Charlie Watkins who will serve as celebrant and preacher, respectively.   Thank you also to Janie Atwood who will assist with welcoming, introductions and announcements.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 7 IS AN IMPORTANT DATE WITH MANY ACTIVITIES–MARK YOUR CALENDAR 
Emily-Louse Zimbrick-Rogers will be commissioned as our intern, completing her M. Div. from Princeton Seminary.  Emily-Louise is already actively engaged in developing our ministries and mission.

Jennifer Brown will be commissioned to service as our new Director of Children and Family Ministry.  Jennifer has provided an introduction letter which will be included as a bulletin insert this coming Sunday.  Please read this carefully and give your support to Jennifer in the important work ahead.  

There will be three separate meetings after worship:  Jennifer will meet with parents of Sunday School-aged children; Mike Mabry will meet with parents of “Youth-aged” children and Brian will meet with Home/Small group leaders.

WEEKEND WITH BISHOP STEVE AND SALLY BREEDLOVE SEPTEMBER 12-14:  Thank you to those who have helped with the planning for this visit by Bishop Steve Breedlove and his wife Sally.  The Leadership Council and spouses will be joining the Breedloves for lunch on Saturday and we give thanks to the Atwoods who have offered their home for this occasion.  On Saturday at 7:00 PM everyone is encouraged to attend a Coffee and Desert reception in the Fellowship Hall where there will be opportunity to meet and greet the Bishop and his wife.   The visit will culminate on Sunday with a very special service that you will want to attend:  the Ordination to the Deaconate of Nile Gomez. 

NAME TAGS AND NEWCOMERS:  Please remember to wear your name tag.  They are now located just inside the double doors leading to the hallway.  Please also continue your welcoming presence to visitors and offer gentle encouragement that they complete one of the Welcome To Christ The Redeemer contact cards.  If your name tag is missing or damaged, please leave a note or call the office:  757.226.8700.

ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL) TO RESUME IN SEPTEMBER:  Thank you to Hank Thompson who will soon be providing more information about how you can support this important program.  

RENOVATIONS UPDATE:  A big thank you to all the people who have helped with the extensive renovations over the summer.  There are still a few finishing touches being worked on.  If you are able to do so, please ask around after services on Sunday to see if any helping hands are still needed to relocate small, light-weight furniture.

As Rev. Brian said in last week’s email:

Let us be prayerfully expectant as we come to the end of the summer. 
Let us be open and responsive to the Spirit’s prompting and leading. 
Let us always be about seeking the King and the extension of his Kingdom!
May the peace of God be with us all.

Learning to Seek

CtR Sunday 10-14-12-7605 RotationSeek the LORD and his strength;
Seek his presence continually!
Psalm 105:4

It seems that by the providence of God and the wisdom of the compilers of the lectionary, we are to take seriously Psalm 105! This past Sunday a portion of this psalm was set for our main service of the day (Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22), and appropriately so. The later portion of the psalm gives us Israel’s way of ‘reading’ and interpreting the ‘Story of Joseph’ – the beginning of which was the Old Testament lesson for the day (Genesis 37: 1-28).

This morning, however, the lectionary brings us back to read and reflect on the entire Psalm (the first half set for this morning; the second, for the evening’s office). At the heart of the psalm- the main thing that drives the whole thing- lies verse 4. What the psalmist wants more than anything else is to encourage his people to ‘Seek the LORD and his strength; Seek his presence continually!’

I found myself drawn to this exhortation this morning, and to the fact that it IS an exhortation. This is the one thing above all things that the people of God need to do; and yet, it is also the one thing among all things we are not prone to do; thus, the exhortation! Ask yourself: did you wake this morning with THIS task as the FIRST task on your agenda?

As I read through the psalm it occurred to me that what follows the exhortation is the psalmist’s way of motivating us to ‘seek’. He calls us to ‘remember the wondrous works he has done’ and then retells the story of Israel as a way of helping us do so (beginning with the Patriarchs themselves, v 7-15; Joseph, v 16-22; Jacob’s coming to Egypt, v 23-24; Moses’ deliverance of the people from Egypt, v 26-36; and culminating in the wandering in the wilderness and the entry into the Promised Land, v 37-44).

And all of this to what end? ‘That they might keep his statutes and observe his laws’ (v44).
In other words, that the people the psalmist addresses might live their lives AS the people of God.

To remember the story, and to remind ourselves that this is OUR story, is a wonderful way of motivating us to ‘seek the LORD.’

But how do we do so?

Go back and read the first few verses of the psalm and note the other exhortations: ‘Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him….’

Once we are motivated to ‘seek the LORD’ through our remembering the story, we are to flesh out that ‘seeking’ in cultivating the practices and dispositions of ‘giving thanks’, of ‘witnessing’, and of ‘praise/worship’!

These are the concrete ways we ‘seek’ the LORD;
and the concrete ways the LORD allows himself to be‘found’!

I commend them to you, as I commend them to myself this day.

The Gift of Revelation!

Just before deadline - time, stress or rush concept.

The LORD is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The LORD is good to all,
And his mercy is over all that he has made.
Psalm 145:8-9

I received a gift this morning from the Daily Office; a reminder that calmed my heart and reoriented my mind.

I woke this morning feeling tired and tense.

In many ways this is understandable (at least, this is what I tell myself!). This summer has been good but busy for me personally. It began with my D. Min. week in early June (which went extremely well but was very taxing), continued with the ACNA Assembly in Latrobe (again, a fun time but, for this introvert, emotionally exhausting), and then climaxed with our trip to Rwanda—again a blessed but very full and busy time.

I returned from Rwanda to this brief window of time before my vacation needing to prepare for the fall season which lies just around the corner.

I woke this morning to a very large to-do list and a sense of anxiety surrounding the ‘doing’. This is part of my dilemma. When I am tired and stressed I am more prone to fall back into old patterns of being and thinking—old patterns that smack more of death than of life. Full disclosure: part of my (fallen) default drive is centered in the lie that my identity is caught up in my achievements. My anxiety is not derived from my ‘to-do list’; my anxiety is founded on how I conceive of myself in relation to my ‘to-do list’.

I brought myself as I was to the Daily Office this morning and given the gift of Psalm 145.

It is a psalm of David, a psalm of praise and wonder at the being and doing of God, the Creator and Redeemer of all.  David begins the psalm by praising God generically (v 1-7) and ends the psalm with some more specific reflections (v. 13b-21). But in the middle of the psalm (v. 8-9) David expresses the essence of God’s revelation of himself: ‘The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.’

I do not know whether the LORD broke into his prayer and directly revealed himself to David; or whether during his own reflections on the LORD’s works, David discovered for himself the essence of the One who accomplishes those works. Either way David rejoices in the character and being of God.

When I read David’s words this morning I was stopped in my tracks. I found myself drawn to this revelation; drawn to the words themselves; drawn to the character and being of my God. I found myself meditating on them and with them (breathing in one phrase and breathing out the next, and doing so over and over and over again).

And in so doing my anxiety disappeared.

By God’s grace and through his mercy he replaced my lie with his truth.  My identity is not caught up in what I do – in what I create! My identity is caught up in and through and with my Creator, the One who created me!

Memorize Psalm 145: 8-9 and meditate on this text often. Breathe it in and breathe it out.

And God’s truth will set you free.

Week of August 6 of Pentecost

Dear Friends

This heat makes me wish to be back in Rwanda! (low 80’s, no humidity- paradise).  If you were present at worship last Sunday you got a taste of the excitement we brought back from Africa. The goal was to deepen our relationship with our sister parish and discover a direction for our future together. God was graciously present through it all and we came home with a very clear idea as to how best we can partner with Mbyo in helping them develop and grow.  More on this in the days and weeks ahead.
On a pastoral front, I ask for your prayers for Charles Jenkins. Charles had major surgery a few weeks ago and while the news is good (no cancer) the recovery is slow and discouraging. Pray for God’s strength for Charles and comfort for Carolyn.

On a celebratory note, please mark your calendars now for Sunday September 14. That is the day when Bishop Steve Breedlove will ordain Nile Gomez to the diaconate (Steve will be with us the entire weekend — more on that next week).  This will be the second such ordination we have been privileged to host (John Mabus being the other). As we did with John, we would like to do for Nile; if you would like to honor Nile by donating towards the cost of his clergy apparel (shirts, collars, robes, stoles), please make the checks out to ‘Christ the Redeemer’ and put ‘Nile Gomez’ in the notation line.

Enjoy the heat. I look forward to worshiping with you all on Sunday.

Peace be with you all.
Brian Campbell