Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Thank you. Thank for continuing with CrossPoint Community (or returning to CrossPoint Community) in my return from Sabbatical. I have a number of things yet to do upon return (like writing a ministry plan based on things I learned). But this weekend, I hope to catch up and see where we as a congregation are at in the vision seeking process.
But I do want to share some things that I’ve learned, so I will do that in my next few updates. First, stopping is hard.
A sabbath is first stopping what you are doing. That is what made it hard for the Israelites in the dessert when they were used to picking up Manna every day. They were to stop picking up manna on the Sabbath, and pick up twice as much the day before. But people had trouble with stopping.
Stopping is difficult for a number of reasons. First, it is humbling. When we stop doing something, we come to the realization that we aren’t as important or necessary as we like to think. Perhaps you’ve experienced this with the loss of a job. You were playing an important role in the company, and they fired you. It’s humbling.
Second, stopping is hard because we don’t know what to do with the suddenly large amount of free time we have. I have a tendency to fill up my time with a good busyness – where I am serving, helping, and learning. We like to be busy because it makes us feel important or like we have a purpose. But when we stop, we lose some of that agency. And then we don’t know what to do with our time.
Third, stopping is hard because we are so pridefully self-reliant and independent. But the purpose of stopping, the purpose of Sabbath, was to put down your labor for a season and rest in the glorious truth that God is the one in control, and we are not. We are contingent, dependent, reliant on Him to provide daily, weekly, monthly. And we don’t like to feel dependent, but that is mostly due to our prideful self-reliance.
Fourth, stopping is an interruption of our normal plans and activities. We are so used to feeling like we are in control, stopping interrupts that thought, and may make us feel out of control.
But God calls us to stop – so that we remember our place (we are dependent on Him!); to remember that He gives us purpose and meaning; to remember that He enables our work and our provision for ourselves and for our families.
Please continue to pray for the nations of Israel and Ukraine and South Sudan. Here is a suggested list of prayers if you are at a loss for words in how to pray: https://send.org/story/hh_pray_for_ukraine. And https://worldrelief.org/blog-prayer-for-israel-and-gaza/ And here are other prayers for peace in general: https://worldrelief.org/prayers-for-peace-in-the-world/ Thank you for kneeling on behalf of the people of Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza and Lebanon, Sudan and South Sudan, and taking a stand (or a knee in prayer) against the forces of darkness in this present age.
Further announcements can be found in the weekly spotlight. And other church wide announcements can be found in our weekly bulletin.
For Prayer:
1. From Bishop J.C. Ryle – “To be prayerless is to be Christless, Godless, and in the high road to destruction…It will always be found that when prayers are few, grace, strength, peace, and hope are small.” Please join our Wednesday night prayer meeting (7:45 – 9:00 pm) even if you can’t participate the whole time.
https://zoom.us/j/758587937?pwd=aS9sZUdxcm1janNNM2I2aXJ6Smx2QT09
Meeting ID: 758 587 937
Password: 030086
Join by phone: +1 929 436 2866 US (New York)
2. We’d be glad to pray for you. If you need prayer, you can submit your prayer request via the following link: https://www.cbcgl.org/pray/
In Christ, your servant, SDG,
Rev. Dr. Nathan Willems
Associate Pastor of CrossPoint Community – A Ministry of CBCGL