The Blawenburg Beacon

Holy Scripture tells us we're going on a journey someday, and when we reach our destination we'll receive new bodies. The seeds of these new bodies, which is spiritual, are planted in the ones we have on this earth and we can tend to them every bit as much as we tend to our physical selves. In fact, spiritual fitness requires following the same regimen as those who try to stay physically fit. Here it is.

1) Recognize your need to get in shape. Are you worried, stressed, grieving, embroiled in turmoil or strife, unable to sleep, angry, or just plain depressed? If so, chances are you are spiritually undernourished. In small doses all of these things are natural, but if any of them consumes more than a few moments in a day, you need help.

2) Make a decision to begin. Once you've accepted your need for help, your next step is to take action. In a spiritual sense this means turning to God and asking for help in prayer, what the Bible calls "repentance." Like your first day in the gym, you may not see any immediate results, but most likely you'll feel better instantly. No earthly exercise can match the sense of well-being found in that first prayer.

3) Seek out professional guidance. If we're serious about physical fitness, we join a health club and consult a personal trainer. They know better the foods and exercises that are best for us. Likewise, Christian clergy are educated professionals in the field of spiritual health. Whether it's in worship, Bible studies or conversation, we can show you where to concentrate your efforts to guarantee the greatest return in the smallest amount of time.

4) Start eating a healthy diet. Most of us like some form of junk food, but we also know our need of the good stuff, like vegetables, fruits, plenty of water, etc. Similarly, we gravitate toward junk in our spiritual lives, most of it coming from toxic conversation and whatever screen we happen to be watching at the moment. While few find themselves able to cut out junk altogether, we can minimize it's unhealthy effects by reading scripture, attending worship and Bible studies, reading and viewing Christian oriented material, and socializing with spiritual people.

5) Exercise regularly. We build muscle to look and feel better and also to enable ourselves to carry heavier burdens. The more weight we lift, the stronger we become; the more cardio-vascular training we undergo, the greater our stamina. Spiritual exercise can be summed up in one word: prayer. The more we exercise our spirits, the greater burdens we can carry in life, and the more we can help others with theirs. Prayer also gives us the strength to endure any trial that life throws our way, because we know it will pass and be explained someday.

With so much help available it makes no sense to continue in a valley of depression or despair. A simple prayer, "God help me!" can start all of us on the road to wellness. Why wait any longer?

(I decided to develop this inspiration further with a series of sermons under the heading of "Spiritual Fitness" that began on August 31, 2008. In this and the next Beacon, at least, I'll summarize the contents of these sermons. You can hear them in their entirety on the Sermon Archives page of our church's website, www.blawenburgchurch.org.)

August 31, Spiritual Fitness: Human Things vs. Divine Things. Our Lord Jesus reminded his disciples (and constantly reminds us) that there is a difference between human things and divine things. What is great and respectable in the eyes of other people is not necessarily great and respectable in God's sight, and vice versa. When Jesus disclosed to them that he was the Messiah, the disciples reacted with great joy, but self-centered joy. They believed great earthly rewards awaited them for being part of the "inner circle." They envisioned fame, fortune and boundless earthly power. But our Lord quickly shattered that dream when he told them of the fate which awaited him in Jerusalem. The Son of Man must "undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders, chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day raised."

The Messiah tortured and crucified?! That's insane! No, not insane, but certainly different from what we expect. And therein lies the first step toward spiritual fitness. God's values and expectations are different from human ones, and true spiritual fitness becomes possible only when we recognize this fact. Whereas most humans perceive a life well lived to include financial security, the praise of others and a long, healthy life, one who embodies a perfect godly life is penniless, reviled by others and nailed to a cross.

Human things feed the ego, but we can only access divine things through humility.

After much prayer and contemplation I was given this mantra: "ego is the enemy." Not only does ego inhibit or block utterly our relationship with God, it is the cause of all human misery. Unfortunately, ego is basic to our natures. We cannot overcome it entirely. It is, as the Apostle Paul puts it, the constant, self-destructive "downward pull of the flesh" - "the tares" that surround "the wheat" in our Lord's parable, so thoroughly enwrapping our spiritual selves that it cannot be pulled without uprooting the whole plant (killing us, in other words).

So we must endure our self-destructive egotistical tendencies for as long as we live here.

But there is a way to reduce their effect, in fact many ways, and the Bible describes them all - spiritual exercises that hold our egos in check and strengthen that part of ourselves which will live for eternity. Here are only a few that I'll be dealing with in the next several weeks: praise, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, service, sacrifice and trust.

Few if any of these things come to us naturally. We need reminding of them, which the Bible does on almost every page. If we make a conscious choice to incorporate divine things into our daily prayers, we'll see mind boggling benefits.

September 6, 2008, Spiritual Fitness: Where and Why? Jesus advises us to seek a quiet place to be alone in order to maximize the effects of our spiritual exercises. Elijah, Moses and our Lord all journeyed into the wilderness to be alone with their thoughts and the "still small voice" of God. For those of us who do not have a wilderness nearby our Lord says, "whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Mt. 6:6). Many of us rarely enjoy "alone time" at home or on the job, but we often overlook those moments when we have a place to ourselves without human distraction. I find those moments immediately after waking to be a perfect time to ask God for blessings on the day, to see the possibilities that this day holds. Some connect in prayer with God while showering. Still others see that daily commuter traffic tie-up, not as a provocation to frustration and anger, but an opportunity to take inventory of the Lord's blessings and thank him accordingly.

And don't forget the abovementioned "reward." God won't drop money into our laps, but prayer may lead to imaginative, insightful ways of earning it.

The far greater rewards are these. Spiritual fitness leads to 1) personal power, 2) eternal life, and 3) the salvation of our species.

In John 10:10, our Lord Jesus says, "I came that they may have life and have it in abundance." In this case our Lord referred to our lives in this world. Faith in Jesus Christ that grows through prayer banishes fear, which compromises and destroys the joyfulness of every single day. Fear weakens us, too, and is grounded in our egos. We fear losing things: our health, our money, our family and friends. We fear God's judgment of our lives. As we become spiritually fit these fears diminish, because we accept more and more our absolute dependence on God who "keeps our lives" and "will never let us stumble or fall." Repeatedly, Jesus reminds us that we have a God who is eager to instill in us the same gifts and powers that he himself demonstrated during his ministry: the power to heal, to raise the dead, prophecy and persuade others. All of this follows in direct proportion to the amount of time we are willing to invest in our spiritual fitness. Most of all we grow in the knowledge that God loves us, no matter how far we wander from his path.

God loves us so much he sent Jesus to show us the way to eternal life. This very idea is vague, shadowy, since no one other than Jesus has ever returned from the dead to reassure us - and we must believe in Jesus to truly accept it. As we exercise our spirits, we grow in certain knowledge of the truth of scripture. Death becomes less a foreboding enemy that separates us from our loved ones forever, and more of a joyful celebration and reunion day that we anticipate with hope.

And finally, there is the matter of our fellow human beings. No one has to tell us that the average person shies away from spiritual matters, perhaps even ridicules them. Statistics prove that the average American places church attendance quite low on the Sunday morning priority list. The Bible clearly teaches that the health and well-being of a nation depends entirely on the degree of its spiritual faith. If a nation loses its faith, it is "no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot" (Mt. 5:13b). According to our Lord Jesus, if the fig tree continues to produce no fruit (which is spiritual faith), God "can (and will) have it down." Leviticus 26 states clearly that God will remove protection from the nation that ceases to "obey (him) and observe all (his) commandments." (14) So, those who commit to spiritual fitness are also doing their patriotic duty, because without us, regardless of the strength of our "chariots," our nation would be destroyed.

Next week, I'll deal with the first of seven basic spiritual exercises: praise. How does it help us get out of ourselves, refresh the day - and save our world.

Exercise #1: Praise. In Philippians 4 the Apostle Paul writes, "whatever is worthy of praise, think about these things . . . and the God of peace will be with you." Peace of mind and heart still stands as the most sought after condition of the human spirit - and it can be ours with a little bit of priority adjustment. Instead of focusing on those things that aggravate us or cause us worry, we are advised by scripture to think about the limitless blessings of life on this earth: the magnificence of creation, the wonder of a newborn baby, the extraordinary achievements of humankind, for example.

Praise helps us in obvious and subtle ways. First, it gets us out of our ego-centered selves, and guides us into positive thoughts. Praising other people, especially those we don't like, lifts our hearts and makes us feel better emotionally. We conform more closely to the spirit of God, who is always looking for reasons to love and praise us.

What we choose to see reflects our souls, the very core of our being. If we choose to see good, our feelings, our attitudes, our behavior will reflect that good. That's what our Lord meant when he said, "The eye is the lamp of the body."

Like reaching for a barbell, we have to make a conscious choice to reach for praise.

Exercise #2: Confess. Life is tough. It throws in our direction an endless series of powerful temptations that lead us away from God and into thoughts and behavior that hurt others as well as our selves. We become like the air conditioner filter I used as a children's sermon illustration, so clogged with impurities the machine begins to malfunction. We malfunction as human beings when we fall into despair about ourselves, or channel our self-loathing into mean-spiritedness.

Confession, and the knowledge that God forgives us, cleans the system, lifts up our hearts and ultimately saves our species.

When we consider the perfect human life, exemplified in Jesus Christ, we are reminded of how God wants us to live. While we cannot follow in the footsteps of our Lord, we know we shirk countless opportunities to show love to others. These conscious refusals, more than the perpetual temptations of the flesh, require our most devoted attention. Confession may not lead to immediate action, but it clearly improves our spiritual well-being over time.

Exercise 3: Give Thanks. While similar to praise, thanksgiving involves a closer inspection of the blessings we personally enjoy every day: good health, food on the table, a warm place to sleep and loved ones, for example. Even if we lack one or more of these things, we Americans are still blessed for more richly than just about anyone else on earth.

Whenever I allow my temporary, daily problems to get me down I think of the billions of people who would give anything to change places with me. Then, thanking God becomes easy.

In my children's sermon on this subject, I asked the young people why "thank you" was a magic word. They understood better, perhaps, than we adults. First, it made the person who gave you something feel good; second, if spoken sincerely, it made that person want to give you something else in the future; and third, it made you feel better for saying it.

When we thank God the same things happen. God is far more ready to give us good things when we thank him than when we don't.

Example 4: Pray Humbly (Supplication). If pride goeth before a fall, humility goeth before our rise into heaven. Scripture states repeatedly that God only hears the prayers of the humble. To grasp true humility we need to analyze some of the parables of our Lord. In "the widow and the apathetic judge" Jesus identified our relationship with God. We are not equals. In fact, next to God we are utterly powerless. God owns everything, including our lives. If we want something from God - healing for a loved one, an end to a conflict - we have to get down on our knees without expectations and ask as one who has no power to bring about the desired result.

Furthermore, we need to accept our relationship to other human beings. The parable of "the Pharisee and the tax collector" shows the tax collector, the most despised member of that society, going down to his home justified, because he admitted his guilt, did not compare himself to anyone else, nor explain away his behavior. The Pharisee, on the other hand, who proudly listed his achievements and visible examples of righteousness, went down to his home having made no connection at all with God.

Humble prayer ultimately empowers us. In conforming to the spirit of our Lord Jesus, we share more mightily in his divine gifts and feel more keenly the merciful, loving presence of God.

6 Sara Querec 22 Gracie Johnson 28 Fran Ficken
12 Grace Terhune 24 Wendy Herbert

Tom Eversen’s grandson, Adam, is in the military and has been deployed. His address is:

Please mark your calendars with these important dates. Our committee hopes you will plan to join us for each and everyone. Evelyn Cochran

March 1, 2008 four women met at 7:30 AM to pray and discuss Chapter l of Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. October 18, 2008 eight women enjoyed breakfast and a discussion of Chapter 10: Balancing Work and Worship. We finished the book on November 8.

This group has been a blessing as we shared prayer concerns and got to know each other better. We will miss Pam and we wish her well back in Florida. We welcome Chi Yi and applaud her clever way to get us in choir by having a rehearsal after our discussion.

If we continue, we need suggestions for a new book to discuss chapter by chapter or a new book to discuss each month. New comers are always welcome.

We will be placing poinsettias is the church sanctuary again this year. Anyone wishing to provide poinsettias for the sanctuary in memory of a loved one may do so by contacting Jean Beachell. The cost will be $15 this year for each red poinsettia. If you have any questions, call Jean Beachell (609-924-7637). Please make checks payable to Jean Beachell.

CROPWALK for the Hungry: Sunday, October 19^th, was a beautiful day! Out of the almost 400 people who walked, the following 11 people who walked for us were: Pastor Rich, Luke and Aubrey Yarbrough, Clare Schmidt, Emma Murphy, Sophie Charlot, Cara and Dylan Hume, T.J. and Morgan VanLiew, and Gracie Johnson. Luke and Dylan ran the five miles together and Emma, Sophie and Morgan hung in there and surprised themselves at what was possible! Thank you walkers for your efforts and sacrifice, walking and fundraising! BRC has raised $1842 in pledges so far, an average of $167. Pastor Rich and Susie, in particular, have done, and vow to continue doing, a dedicated and heartfelt job recruiting donations on behalf of the hungry. You can still sponsor any walker with donations through November 9th. They all would welcome your support! (Make checks payable to BRC, noting CROP on the memo line.) 25% of the $$ raised goes to SHIP and the Somerset County Food Bank Network – needed now more than ever. Thank you so much for your support.

Church World Service Gift of the Heart Kits: We will use any money contributed to purchase whatever remaining items are needed the first week in November and can use your help packing up these kits after church November 23^rd.

Operation Christmas Child: Samaritan’s Purse collects shoeboxes filled with presents for children around the world at Christmas-time and add a gospel story in each in the destination country’s native tongue. We collected and assembled boxes after church on November 16^th.

Heifer Project: Count on this as a gift-giving idea once again during the Advent/Christmas season. Look for the display and offerings which will be out starting November 23^rd and continue through Christmas.

Thanks to all who continue to support the BRC Preservation Fund. Coming events include the Spaghetti Dinner on Nov. 15 and the Sinterklaas Brunch and Bazaar on December 6. Please tell your friends about these opportunities for food, fun, and fellowship.

If you have made a pledge to the BRC Preservation Fund, we would appreciate receiving your 2008 contribution by December 31. Thanks in advance for your gift.

Blawenburg Village Community Yard Sale, on Saturday, October 11, 2008 turned out to be a wonderful outreach and fellowship event for BRC as well as a fundraiser for the Preservation Fund. Lisa Hunt and Sharon and Taylore Fritzinger cooked amazing breakfast sandwiches (they sold out!) and then cheeseburgers. We had 10 tables of vendors on the church property and half a dozen spread out throughout the village. Thanks to Fran Eversen asking if she could donate a box of things from Tom, we decided to have our own table. DeeDee Gebhardt was conscripted, not sure what she was getting herself into; but she and Jean Beachell got it together for us and brought in over $500. The day brought in $872.15 to the Preservation Fund. It was fun to see people walking from one end of Blawenburg to the other on our new brick sidewalks.

Sinterklaas Brunch and Bazaar: Saturday, December 6^th, 9am-2pm. We are expanding our new ‘Breakfast at Blawenburg’ tradition to include a celebration of this Sinterklaas Day with the sale of Christmas décor and white elephant items as well as freshly baked and preserved items and frozen soups and casseroles for the holidays, and anything you think might go with these (like napkins and quilted potholders?!). Think of preserves, jams, jellies, pickles, etc. while there is still produce out there.

Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) eve and day are celebrated in the Netherlands and Europe on Dec.5&6 with present giving. Sinterklaas was the patron or guardian of children. Similar to our cookies and milk for Santa, children leave carrots and hay in their wooden shoes outside their doors for Sinterklaas’ horse. Come celebrate with us!

Just a few years ago, our denomination named the U.S., a.k.a. our back yard, our biggest mission field and challenged our Regional Synods and Classes to start what seemed a daunting number of new churches in the next ten years! Many churches such as ours cried ‘Help!’, ‘How can we possibly start all these new churches when we have trouble enough filling our own pews and meeting budgets?” The General Synod responded with the dual mandate of “starting new congregations and revitalizing existing congregations”. Our Classis of Delaware-Raritan is fully involved in this process now. The current term for new church starts is called ‘church multiplication’. That means simply that those worshippers who start a new congregation start it knowing that in 3-5 years they will be branching out into still new congregations! They don’t join the new congregation for security, but rather for the purpose of sharing the ‘good news’. We have three church starts which have already birthed, or are in the process of birthing, two new congregations. The first is Centro Cristiana Palabra da Fe in Reading, PA. This church was started by Carlos and Carmen Lugo, who originally come from the Dominican Republic. They have already birthed a daughter church in Lebanon, PA. Although well-trained in scripture, leadership and evangelism, Carlos is just now coming under the care of Classis and beginning his path toward ordination. Carmen may pursue that route or the Commissioned Pastor route in the future. They have discipleship training classes and bible studies and their services are all in Spanish with lots of loud joyful music, a far cry from our traditional RCA! LHOV or Light Houses of Oxford Valley, led by Rev. Heidi Butterworth and Rev. Bob Jones, is a ‘cluster or house church model’. Each house church defines and pursues mission as they see it. LHOV has about 10 house churches now, which meet in bars and restaurants as well as homes, and worship every Sunday in a rented fire hall. Some come just for the house churches, some just for worship. They are already birthing a new congregation in north Philadelphia. The third new church start is called “Ignite”, birthed by North Branch Reformed Church and led by David Mojica, who by coincidence also hails from the Dominican Republic and is also pursuing his M.Div. at New Brunswick Seminary. Ignite is currently meeting at United Reformed Church in Somerville and is seeking out young singles and marrieds in a multi-cultural setting. These church starts will need monetary and spiritual support for a number of years until they can be self-sustaining and ‘organized’ congregations, but we are learning much from these new congregations and about how we look at ‘doing church’. Next month: what’s happening in the exciting field of ‘revitalization’. Gracie Johnson, Elder Delegate to Classis

It is a custom here in most homes to remove one’s shoes before entering the house, and not just when the weather outside is bad. The kids even change to slippers at school before entering the building proper. I just made a transition from my Birkenstocks to my LL Bean moccasins as my house shoes. This can mean only one thing: fall is here.

When I made the change in my footwear, it wasn’t accompanied by any special ritual, but a good deal of reflection occurred as I thought about how much our lives have changed since we began this journey. We set out hoping that we would be the agents of change, of freshness, of newness. In fact, I haven’t been thinking lately about what or how much change I bring to my context, rather, how much I have been changed by the context in which we find ourselves.

First to the basics, I am older. (Nancy, though, retains her same beautiful youthfulness.) My body doesn’t respond like it used to. Not that my mind isn’t sending it the same instructions, but they are often sent back with the note — resources not available at this time. We have written often about the frantic pace of our life here, so this change means that just as I need to be moving faster and longer to keep up with the demand, the physical resources are just not there. So priorities have to be set, and “no” has been added to my vocabulary in a striking new way.

Second, I am better able to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty, and to this end I understand more concretely what it is to live by faith in God as the ground of certainty. When one lives in a context of stability and certainty it is more likely (at least it was for me) to rest in that certainty. When the context of certainty is removed, one seeks a new ground of certainty, and the only appropriate ground is God. (Think the line in that old hymn: “All other ground is sinking sand,” even if it appears solid.)

Third, the change of season, which brought on my change of house shoes, means that new classes and new students have arrived. The students here change me in the course of a lecture, with their questions and observations. This means in dialogue that I must see new ways of viewing theological issues, ways that I would have never come to without this give and take. My students are full of questions about life: about when and how they should change their lives or their minds related to theology, and why, how, and when they should seek to change their churches or for that matter their societies.

The students energize me. As one who necessarily spends much time in the study, and thereby internalized, they pull me out and they make me laugh and smile. They awaken in me curiosity and thoughtfulness. They remind me of the need to carry out my Christian life, to put on Christ as it were, and when one puts on Christ, old things pass away, and change is visible on the horizon.

Then there are those changes that leave one melancholy. In about eight weeks, friends who started this journey with us more than two years ago will be leaving. Our kids have bonded with their kids and we have been able to share mutual child care while one set of parents or another had to leave the country for a few days for the sake of the ministries we are engaged in. It was comfortable and comforting to know they were there. So we all prepare for this change, which is coming all too soon. It is like a comfortable pair of shoes not being there. This change is one that impacts the whole family to be sure. Things will be less comfortable with their absence.

Today I will change my shoes again, to my boots so that I can turn the garden over and prepare it for the winter change. For now, I am in my LL Beans, being changed daily by the One who changes me. Pray with us through all these changes of being and circumstances. For prayer, as CS Lewis observed, doesn’t change God, it changes me.

Eric and Nancy Titus are RCA missionaries in Osijek, Croatia, where they work at the Evangelical Theological Seminary and with the Reformed Christian Church in Croatia. They have three children: Samuel, Valerie and Penny.

Even if you aren’t a teenager, page through any part of Ron DeBoer’s new book, Questions from the Pickle Jar: Teens and Sex, and it is likely you will be intrigued by the conversational writing style that the longtime educator uses as he takes on the challenging and yet acutely personal topic.

Topics tackled—all from a Christian perspective—include dating and relationships, sex without marriage, abuse, homosexuality, and pornography.

“I wrote the book to give teens a humorous, straight-up talk on sex and relationship issues,” says Ron DeBoer, the author, in an email.

“I wanted to give kids a voice that wasn’t authoritarian or institutional, but one that was honest, colloquial, aware of what’s going on in the media and culture, and be upfront that everyone—including their teachers and parents—have dealt with these same issues.”

The book addresses very tough subjects in a way that is engaging and non-offensive. Especially, it gives teens and their parents a framework within which they can talk about the issues.

The book is mainly geared for high-school-age teens to read on their own and for high school teachers and youth leaders to use as a platform for sex talks in the classroom or in a church setting. An introductory video on the book is also available.

“There are interactive components to the book where kids have the option to write down their own thoughts on topics,” says DeBoer, who is a longtime teacher and now works as a vice-principal of a school in Canada.

The book’s title comes from an exercise that DeBoer used to do in his high school sex-education class; teens could write any question they wanted about sex and slip it into a big pickle jar he used to bring into class.

“I would then pull these questions out and answer them…honestly, humorously, and with a Christian perspective,” he says.

One of the crucial themes of the book is that sex and intimacy are gifts from God. But there are limits and matters of self-control that Christian teens need to consider. At the same time, though, DeBoer says he did not write the book to make a boy or girl feel guilty for having sexual thoughts.

DeBoer says about his book, “The purpose of this book is first to be honest with each other and then to give a solid Christian perspective on the whole topic of sex and relationships by considering God’s boundaries and expectations for our relationships.”

Questions from a Pickle Jar is published by Faith Alive Christian Resources, the publishing agency of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, in cooperation with the Office of Abuse Prevention of the Christian Reformed Church.