Pastor Tim’s Daily Bible Bit: I Peter 1:1-2 NLT
1This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.
As one of the 12 apostles, Peter had special authority from Jesus to instruct the early church. God used the apostles to write the New Testament.
I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.
Obviously, this letter got passed around. If you are a Christian, you are also one of God’s chosen people and a foreigner in the sense that you live in a world that does not know God. It is good for us strangers to group up and help each other in this foreign culture.
2God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
All three persons of the Trinity were involved in you becoming a Christian. Your Father knew and loved you before you were born. He chose you and the Holy Spirit sanctified you. He would never abandon His plan for you. Your first act of obedience was to place your trust in Jesus for forgiveness of sins. The cleansing you received was possible because Jesus willingly placed Himself under the Father’s punishment for your crimes against God. Continuing obedience to our Rescuer is a way of life for us Christians.
May God give you more and more grace and peace.
God wants you to experience even more of His kindness and peace of mind. As you take steps of obedience toward becoming more and more like Jesus (our example), you do experience more grace and peace. Share it with others!
Prayer:
Ask God to help you and those Christians around you gain more confidence in the great love of your Father and grow in your desire to obey Him.
Discipleship According to Winnie the Pooh: Part Two
When we think of that fancy word Discipleship, let’s not picture learned men in crisp suits, or bored hours spent bowed over a table with a checklist. Let’s think of Pooh and his friends. Do you remember the story of Pooh eating too much and getting jammed in Rabbit’s front hole? It’s the one with that quaint picture of a grassy hill and the top half of a yellow bear, who joins paws with a blond-haired boy who’s pulled elastic-tight by a long line of rabbits, squirrels, and mice.
Wait. That’s the way things are?
That picture doesn’t seem to match up with the time I lent someone an ear and got gossiped about a week later. I’ve taken on jobs I didn’t really have time to keep up with, I’ve acted stupidly, nursed bitter memories; I’ve been misunderstood, used; and frankly, I don’t know if I have the energy, nerve, or desire to try again. I see no lovely forest and cute animal friends.
But upon closer inspection, we’ll find something else in the tender Pooh stories. If we look, we can see ourselves in their Forest, and perhaps we’ll discover here what’s holding us back from the freedom and joy of giving Love.
If we walk with Pooh through the forest, the first thing we’ll see is a large hole in a grassy bank. Pooh bends over and calls, “Is anybody home?”
Do you hear the “sudden scuffling noise?” Then all is quiet. Sudden scuffling plus quiet equals—inconvenienced.
Then for good measure, Rabbit calls out, “No!” and tries to disguise his voice. Pooh prods, Rabbit pretends. Pooh prods, Rabbit hems and haws. Finally, Rabbit has to invite Pooh in, or else he’ll look rude. Pooh stays until he’s emptied Rabbit’s honey and milk. And Rabbit is polite. Rabbit is very polite. Rabbit is so polite that we can almost feel the pressure of his breath while he’s holding it in. But Rabbit tries his best.
Sometimes I do try my best. Or at least I try to try my best. Sort of. Then my daughter spills paint all over her favorite book and yells, “MOMMY!” Or my husband’s car breaks down and I have to go and get him. Just like Pooh gets himself jammed in Rabbit’s hole on his way out. And there’s a funny little picture in the book that shows Pooh’s round backside bulbing out of the hole from the inside, while Rabbit is still holding up his empty can of condensed milk with a very round-eyed and disbelieving look on his face.
Then we have the stuck-scene. Pooh fumes that it’s because Rabbit’s door isn’t big enough. My daughter laments that I should have reminded her to put the cap on the paint jar. A person I’m befriending asks why, why can’t I pick her up in ten minutes?
Then Rabbit hops away to get help. That wonderful word that feels like a sigh and a yell at the same time. Help.
We often slap that label onto our foreheads: We think we are the Help. The Savior. Is it any wonder that we expect so much of ourselves?
But Rabbit hops away and gets Christopher Robin, who makes everyone feel better, who croons to Pooh that he’ll slim up soon, who reads to Pooh from a Sustaining Book. And Rabbit? Rabbit is inside, hanging his laundry on Pooh’s dangling legs. He is making use of the situation. Is Rabbit really being a friend?
That question can be answered with another question: What about the guy in Jesus’ Story of the Talents, the one the master only gave one talent to? The others got more stock to invest than he did. He only had one unit of currency. And that was okay. But then he crept away from the others who had more to give, because he was scared to death of his master’s expectations, and he didn’t do anything with it at all.
And Rabbit? Rabbit was given the one small talent of Creativity. He doesn’t hide: he trades it in and gains Patience and Energy. His heart relaxes from his satisfied need to be industrious in his housework. And thus we see a bunny grow from a hesitant friend to a cheerful helper who calls his “friends and relations” to join Christopher Robin, in that well-remembered picture of the tug-of-war rescue effort which swells to a high and glorious POP! and a very happy, freed bear.
Maybe we only have one unit of currency. Maybe we don’t have much maturity yet. Maybe we have a selfish streak. Maybe we don’t have much time or energy. Maybe more than a half hour of picking through a Bible study booklet with an argumentative new friend would send us to the bathroom cabinet for a sedative. Maybe taking that younger guy for a ride every time he wants one would make us lose our already short tempers.
Grace and Truth says it is better to listen to a person for ten minutes than to not listen for three hours.
Jesus delights in reading to our Pooh, untiring, while we hang our laundry on those fur legs and accomplish little more than keeping our mouths closed. And that’s okay. Like Rabbit. Rabbit won. Rabbit passed the test. Rabbit, as well as our other dear friends in the Wood, got the blessing of participating in the most important gift in the world: Love. Without it we have nothing. With it, we have everything.
You can do it. Your Teacher is delighted with your ten minutes, your three-inch temper. Leap into the air, Rabbit. Your Christ will make you fly, and your friends will be many.
Discipleship According to Winnie the Pooh: Part One
Discipleship is the passion of GreenTree and our goal for the New Year. Are we even sure what it means? It’s a word that sometimes sounds boring, always sounds theological, and is in danger of making us wince.
When Jesus tells us that His commands are not burdensome, we humans strain over weighty church-words that don’t seem to have anything to do with us, and we scratch our heads. We do feel burdened, and we sometimes wonder what Jesus meant with the yoke-is-easy thing and the abundant-life stuff.
A few days ago I was looking at cute Winnie the Pooh pictures in my daughter’s collection by A. A. Milne, and I chuckled at myself, and my grown-up plans and adult stresses. Here are a bunch of little talking animals in the Forest that have more sense than I do. They even do discipleship, but they aren’t bogged down with check-lists and guilt trips. This lovely story, told by a father to his son, gives me a picture of the D-word that changes everything.
All the animals in the forest are simple, with a child’s crude understanding of how things are supposed to work in their world. Rabbit manages to keep an image of having his wits together but can’t always feel completely generous; Owl, sitting high up in his tree house and offering wisdom to the animals who pass by, doesn’t know how to spell; and Pooh himself, ever-ready for adventure and ever-hungry for honey, lives under the identity that makes him perhaps the lowliest of them all: “Bear of Very Little Brain.”
But this little bear, for all his slowness of brain, has a Friend who lifts him up to the highest stair of his love and esteem. That Friend is a human boy named Christopher Robin. He’s the son in the beginning of the book who listens to his father tell the story of all the animals, and he’s also the boy inside the story, sharing in each part.
The presence of Christopher Robin is felt in a quiet way everywhere. He’s the sort of Big Brother of the forest. The door signs and notices among the homes in the woods show his handwriting. It’s Christopher Robin who comes to the Six Pine Trees and helps in the search for the lost Pooh, Piglet, and Rabbit. And in the very first chapter of the book, it’s Christopher Robin whom Pooh goes to for help when his lust for honey lands him in the gorse-bush. That honey-hunger always makes Pooh’s tummy too pudgy and gets him into all sorts of messes. From the very first, Pooh sees a bunch of bees in a tree, climbs straight up, cracks a branch, and crashes more than sixty feet into a prickly bush.
Pooh says, “It all comes of liking honey so much. Oh, help!” And naturally he goes to Christopher Robin’s house.
Pooh’s Friend and Guide throws no accusing stones, gives him no outline to follow for fixing his silly behavior. When Pooh asks Christopher Robin for a blue balloon with which to disguise himself and float up to the honey-laden tree, Christopher Robin asks Pooh, “Wouldn’t they notice you underneath the balloon?” but gives Pooh the balloon anyway.
The boy watches, and smiles, and encourages, while Pooh reasons and figures with his little mind and then rolls himself in the black mud so that he can pretend to be a dark cloud under the sky-colored balloon. Of course, the bees start stinging poor Pooh and he needs help getting down. Christopher Robin laughs in his heart, muttering, “Silly old Bear!”
But he loves Pooh, through all Pooh’s proud songs and falls and scratches and honey-searches and his crashes into holes. Pooh is cute and lovable and important, for one reason: he glows from the light reflected in the boy’s loving eyes.
Those of us who have accepted the gift of God’s Son are being discipled at this very moment, by One much greater than any Christopher Robin. He sits outside our little world, there with his Father who wrote our history, talking together about us, chuckling over us, holding us. He lives, too, inside our stories, always ready to help, letting us try and fail and picking us up when we land into a thorn-bush. Sometimes he waits for us to run to the other end of the forest to find him; and he is there. Many times he shows up alongside us as we are hurling pine cones at each other or trying to figure out what to do about our problems. Always he teaches us. Never does he leave us. Forever he is patient with us.
So, while we’re trying to figure out whether to camp on Jesus’ command to “Go into all the world and make disciples” and take on this elusive Discipleship Project, we might not realize that we’re part of it, already. The Teacher is here, with us, in our own Hundred Acre Wood. In the end, it’s not some project. It’s just life. The life he shares with us, and the love he teaches us to give as we share with each other, learn together, and bumble through the forest on each new adventure. The D-word is as important as life itself. The call from Jesus is real. The practice is hard work, but simple, as natural as breathing and having children. The reward is life, and love. The Example is the One who wrote history and lives within it. We can just ask Pooh, and Rabbit, and Piglet. They’ll get Christopher Robin and help us go and catch a Heffalump, and we’ll receive much, much more.
Job’s New Beginning
by Anne Gross
When we think of the end of Christmas and the coming of New Year’s Day, probably the most common thought that taps the heads of the human population is that highly-charged, highly inspiring, often iron-heavy phrase called New Year’s Resolutions.
Just now, as I typed that phrase, I smiled but then sighed.
I don’t believe in them much, but I still like to make them. I just tend to carve a pair of quotation marks around that phrase anymore. I haven’t looked on Wikipedia or Answers.com for any definition help, but it seems easy to see New Year’s Resolutions as a hearty list of plans and equipment for climbing (this time I’ll do it, I know!) that Mount Everest called the New Year.
This year left me a bit dazed, though, and my brain is a little too fried to tell me what my plans are. I’m tired from figuring out the family dinner menus and homeschool twisty-turnings and ministry dreams and crashes and joys. I’ve been shell-shocked from the loss of a family member. I’ve grabbed the tail of a kite and sung a thousand songs from a thousand feet up, and I’ve landed in the bushes and forgotten what the point was. I’ve prayed for friends this year who have had loved ones suddenly die, or marriages that smashed up their trust in human beings.
I need something more than a resolution.
A few days ago, I thumbed through the book of Job a little, since Job had had more trauma than just a dazed system or a blue mood. Whenever I think of the story of Job, I usually think of the challenges of a hurt and angry man, a sharp rebuke from God, and the restoration of property. But this time, I saw something I had never seen before.
Job had no to-do list or resolution. Job had no determination to get his ducks in a row. Job had a New Beginning. And his New Beginning started, not with restored property, but with something shocking yet strangely familiar. A character I recognize.
There it is. He’s there, the silhouette on the page. It’s the indulgent father of the Prodigal Son, and he comes running before his boy has hardly confessed anything.
Right there it is, in Job 42. After Job challenges God to a day in court and gets God’s thunderous slideshow of wonders, then repents and says, “Oh, I didn’t understand . . . You’re right,” God stops, looks at Job’s friends, and says something that absolutely blasts my mind.
“You have not spoken of me what is right, as My servant Job has . . . My servant Job will pray for you.”
Job, in a brief moment, changes his mind, says one true thing about God; and God forgets all about everything else. He holds Job up as His trophy. That simply.
The only thing I can think of that even comes close is a gullible little kindergärtner who completely forgets his fight with his bullying playmate and instantly becomes best friends again; and away they skip to the monkey bars, hand in hand, as if nothing had ever happened.
And in Job’s New Beginning, God is more extravagant than said kindergärtner, who brings his friend home and gives him his remote control Hot Wheels in one impulsive swoop that will likely get him into big trouble with Mom when she finds out. God gives Job as many children as he’d had before, comforting friends, and an avalanche of wealth . . . just because.
Once again, I repent in dust and ashes for my dismally distorted way of seeing God. I have not one clue how loving, strong, and wise He is.
I still have my little things I’d like to see changed in 2012 . . . habits I’d like to break, things I’d like to get done. But what I need most is a New Beginning. What my soul needs is Grace. What I need to hold in my hand is the liberating truth that God is for me, that He will stop at nothing to help me grow into the thing of beauty He planned for me to be all along, that He is in charge of me, that He loves me. Really, really loves me, in the craziest way.
That truth will make everything possible. That Grace will make us fly.
We are wound-tight, near-sighted ultra-conservatives compared to what is real. We’re like Job, who starts to think our Father doesn’t care that much. We’re like Job’s friends, who think the bad stuff must be happening because God doesn’t approve of us.
And all along, God may be bragging on us. He might be showing off our picture from His open wallet, whether we think we’re flops, or whether we’re a little too proud of ourselves. At this moment any one of us might be feeling like losers, red-faced with shame, doubled over with weeping, or picturing God’s frown. In reality, we might be making a laughingstock of the Devil and proving him wrong once again.
Job’s story is not an exceptional case, though. Sprinkled all throughout the Old and New Testaments are little stories of people who have their faces turned away from God; then, when they make feeble attempts to confess, He comes running. Fast.
This is the kind of God we have. The Maker who has the right to direct the paths of His creations. The Father who loves His creatures with a velvety passion. The Genius who turns around fear and pain and evil and draws the math to add up to a good that makes a cynic sing. This is what changed Job. Not the wealth, children, and livestock added back to him. And certainly not a list of resolutions. Job got a new beginning, and a new hope, because he saw God for who He really was.
May we see God as He really is in 2012. The magical Genius, the affectionate Father, the powerful Whirlwind, all in one. And the One who is for us. He has a story, a wonderful story. And no matter how 2011 went, the story isn’t over.
A Note From Pastor Tim . . .
Merry Christmas to you! I hope this holiday season is turning out to be a great time for you. God has blessed us in so many ways, but one of the greatest ways is the gift of friendship.
Some people think that family is automatically closer than friends, but some of you know from personal experience that that is not true. Often a family member will be one of our closest friends because of our history together. However, many people are very disconnected from family and have found a substitute family among friends.
I think everyone needs a family and a place to belong. Being a family to people who need one is part of the strength and beauty of Greentree. Maybe you can find someone who is alone this Christmas and make them a part of your family for, at least, a few hours. After all, starting a family is really what the celebration of Christmas is all about (Eph. 2:19). The Son of God became a son of man that sons of men might become sons of God.
Nesting Place
There’s a bird’s nest on the parking lot end under the awning of the community center, likely left behind after cold-weather migration, packed in a drain hole. Not one of those Hallmark-card-like little cup-shaped nests, but more like something hastily assembled for basic function. Imagine little birds taking twigs, fluff, leaves, and all the do-dads birds use to establish the comforts of home, and just clapping together a homestead within a metal opening under the awning of a hard cement building. There are lots of nice trees around here, and surely many of the neighbors have pretty, painted birdhouses on their front porches: so why do they pick buildings? Don’t they feel a bit cheated?
One of our friends who’d looked up at the nesting spots several times, told me, “Oh, that’s not the only nest. There have been others up there.” He pointed to several places up above where, sure enough, there had been a small neighborhood of bird homes tucked around. Apparently it’s been a prime area of real estate in the bird housing market. Maybe, when spring comes, the little builders will come in and business can boom again.
It’s funny and nice to think about: birds’ nests at GreenTree. It’s a nice picture of the Parable of the Mustard Seed.
The parable is found in Mark 4:30-32, where Jesus says that the kingdom of God “is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.” Theologians differ in opinion about the meaning of the plant (which grows as tall as 12 to 15 feet in just a few weeks), but one thing is certain: Jesus wanted to describe the kingdom of God to us because we, His children, are part of it. And the kingdom, and Jesus’ path, is often littered with paradoxes and opposites. The greatest in the kingdom is the servant. The meek shall inherit the earth. The poor in spirit get the kingdom of heaven.
We long to be a church in which the vulnerable and the unsettled will find a home. Already, God is teaching us how to love outside our safe haven, and we are becoming a blended family of “birds” of many “different feathers.” It is our prayer that GreenTree will become more and more effective at enlarging its borders. May we be that place in the kingdom where people—no matter how much or how little money they have, how settled or messy they are, how successful they are or how far they have fallen—will find in GreenTree a home where they can nest.
Annual White Elephant Christmas Party, Dec. 18th!
Every year, close to Christmas, we enjoy what we call our “White Elephant” party: it’s a Dirty Santa game, but the gift each person totes in is not bought from the store. A “white elephant” is some useless thing lying around the house which a person wraps up, unmarked, and places under the Christmas tree in GreenTree’s main room. At least two Christmases in a row, a nice old set of golf clubs got fought over; I think Frank may have ended up with that one when push came to shove. Johnnie is too tenderhearted to yank somebody’s present away from them, even if it’s for a big laugh. He’d much rather raise his finger in the air and tell a funny story. But Chryl will go ahead and do what needs to be done, with a very kind “Sorry.” And nobody wanted the roll of toilet paper somebody had the genius to stuff into a pretty bag a couple of years ago.
When the time is over, everyone walks away with a chuckle in his throat, a smile on her face, and another useless thing to take home.
Come and have a goofy time with us, December 18th at 6pm, and bring your appetites and one wrapped-up “White Elephant,” on the one night of the year in which it’s okay to grab things from each other and get away with it.
Fall Festival
Our Fall Festival was a fun and festive event as well as a wonderful opportunity to meet more members of our community. Some came back to spend time with us on Family Fun Night, and some even wanted to become involved as volunteers for future events.
Community Thanksgiving Meal: Sunday Nov. 20th
Around Thanksgiving every year, Greentree members and friends enjoy a hearty potluck meal, Thanksgiving-style, with warm family conversation, laughter, sharing, and singing. But we don’t want to keep it to ourselves! This year, we are excited to begin opening this up to the community, consistent with our vision and mission. We’d love for you to come!
The meal starts at 5:00. Bring a friend if you’d like, bring a big appetite, and especially, bring your plain ol’ self. We like it that way.
We want your outreach ideas
We have decided to cancel Family Game Night for May. Chryl normally organizes this event, but she is moving this weekend. Additionally, we have seen very little community involvement in FGN which we had hoped would be an outreach tool. Perhaps it could be re-structured or advertised better to be more effective. We would like your ideas about FGN or other events that you believe people from our neighborhood would be motivated to attend.
Thanks for the help!
THANK YOU. Many thanks to all of you who came out on Saturday morning to eat donuts and help with the much-needed work day. We cleaned and tilled and planted and moved and planned and patched. With all we accomplished, there are still things to be done. Speak with Pastor Tim or Kenny Long if you would like to help. Remember that Pastor Tim is the only employee we have. Everyone else is a volunteer!
Community Game Night – This Friday!
For the month of April, we are combining Family Game Night with the Easter Egg Stuffing Party in preparation for the West Salem Egg Hunt the next Saturday. Try to come to FGN on Friday April 11 OR the Egg Hunt OR both!
Preview Financial Peace University
Starting May 5 we will be running Financial Peace University for the third time at GreenTree. If you or someone you know would like to take the class, please speak with David or Ashley Mitchell or just show up for the preview class at 7:00 p.m. on April 21. The thirteen week class on personal finances is taught via video by nationally syndicated radio talk show host and author, Dave Ramsey. Spread the word about the class!!
Mowing Grass!
It is hard to believe that it is the time of year again to start mowing and trimming grass and spraying weeds, etc. If you would be willing to help out with this fairly small task at GreenTree or at our cemetery on Jonestown Road, please see Kenny Long. Also, if you have flowers or other plants that you would like to donate and/or plant anywhere on the premises, please speak with Pastor Tim.
Sharing Resources
Last Sunday, Pastor Tim challenged us to begin thinking more as a community of people who help one another. He gave out a response form that allows you to reveal what you have that you would be willing to lend, give, trade or share. Please leave those completed forms on the back table where you can also find some blank forms.
New Sermon Series – Handling Negative Emotions
Last week Pastor Tim begins a new sermon series entitled, Handling Negative Emotions. Hopefully, the sermons will be very helpful to you but if you feel that you need more personalized help, please contact Pastor Tim at 336-692-3237 or email timanne@bellsouth.net Remember, God never intended for us to live the Christian life alone. We are supposed to bear one another’s burdens.
Family Game Night a Success!
Dear Friends,
We had a wonderful time Friday at Family Game Night. I believe we had the greatest number of visitors so far. We look foward to having even more of you join us next month. Even if you hate having fun, please try to make it to the next FGN and suffer for Jesus’ sake. 🙂 Okay, I’m being a little sarcastic, but you get the point. I love you all and I believe if we work together, we can make a difference in Winston-Salem. FGN makes serving easy and fun!
Pastor Tim
Helping our Family in Egypt
Friendship
Note from the Pastor:
I want to take this opportunity to tell you how much I appreciate your friendship. Of course, I haven’t known some of you long enough to call you more than an acquaintance, but I hope that will change. A few of you I haven’t gotten to know very well even though I have known you for a while. Most of you I can call friends of mine, and that makes me feel like a rich man.
Friendship is as ordinary as air, but like air it is very precious. Deep, satisfying friendships hardly ever just happen. Instead, they are developed with great effort over a long time. The older you get, the more you see how rare a truly good and loyal friend is. “A friend loves at all times…” Proverbs 17:17.
If you have a good friend, be sure to tell them how much they mean to you. Be sure to be loyal. And remember, a great friendship can start with, “Hi, my name is…what’s yours?”
Privilege & Responsibility
Words like responsibility and commitment sometimes seem negative to us because it feels like so often we are being asked to take a responsibility or make a commitment. It can be overwhelming. In fact, sometimes others try to manipulate us into taking on responsibilities by making us feel guilty. Sometimes we over-commit and find ourselves in a rat race that is anything but fun. However, many responsibilities are linked to privileges. The ability to see the benefit of taking on a responsibility helps us become more willing to do so or to continue in an existing responsibility. In light of this, please consider the value of the Wednesday evening Growth Group. If you are being helped, then sign up on the back table to help with child care or food to allow the Wednesday Growth Group to continue to be a great ministry.
Cleaning Assistance
If you can help with the cleaning of our building, it would be greatly appreciated. Ben mostly does this thankless job by himself and it is about time for someone else to volunteer. Please sign up on the back table or talk to Ben to make arrangements. You don’t have to commit to cleaning the entire building just to offer to help.
GreenTree 