VBS - Crocodile Dock

VBS is off to a great start! With the combined efforts of dozens of ECC volunteers, including lots of youth, we are sharing the love and message of Jesus with nearly 150 kids this week. The sanctuary and much of the church have been transformed into a fun, swampy dock. Kids are learning great songs of praise and faith. We are providing breakfast and lunch for dozens of the kids. We are connecting with parents and helping kids meet new friends. We are playing games, doing crafts and generally having a great time.

And above all, we are bearing witness to God's goodness and telling the story of Jesus.

So, if you are not here already, take some time out of your schedule one morning this week and stop by the church. Watch God at work in the lives of young people through the faithful service of your brothers and sisters at ECC. And join us in praying that God's hand will be evident and His grace real in the lives of each of the kids this week.

Pressing On

I grew up a Tom Watson fan. As a native Kansas Citian, Watson is a Midwest hero, and I learned to love golf by watching him and Jack Nicklaus. Who would have thought 32 years after Watson out dueled Nicklaus in the 1977 British Open, Tom would be back in contention for his sixth Open title. Add to the mix that the 59 year-old Watson had hip-replacement surgery less than a year ago, and this was almost the greatest sports story of the decade.

If you missed it, Watson hung around the leaderboard all four rounds, and took a one shot lead to the final hole Sunday. All he needed was a par to become the oldest major championship winner, breaking the mark by nearly 13 years. Golf is a tough game, and sometimes the ball bounces too far. Watson hit two great shots followed by two poor putts, and walked off with a bogey and a 72-hole tie with Stewart Cink. The playoff was all Cink, and Watson's bid for history fell short.

The result was disappointing, but the drama was still fantastic. And for me, it brings to mind Paul's exhortation in Philippians 3:13-14:

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Followers of Jesus never take a vacation from our faith, never retire, never stop following our Lord. Years may eventually slow the body or even dull the mind, but our souls never tire of serving the cause of Christ and honoring our glorious God. We press on and will keep pressing on until Jesus calls us home.

CHIC

Every three years they gather, and every three years lives are changed forever. CHIC 2009 is drawing to a close, and our young people, along with a few thousand others, are having a great time and being challenged to follow Jesus.

The people of ECC worked hard to raise money and encourage our youth to attend this great event. Now we should rejoice in what God is doing in Tennessee. Visit the Covenant Church website for updates and pictures: http://www.covchurch.org.

Reaching the Unreached

We had a great mission dinner last night with Rich and Pam Agnew. If you are not familiar, they serve in Mexico with New Tribes Mission, an organization that seeks to bring the message of Jesus to people groups that have no other access to the gospel. Some missionaries with New Tribes spend a lifetime ministering to one small people group. In some cases, the language these people speak has no written form. So, the missionaries create an alphabet and develop a dictionary. Then they teach the native speakers who to read their language. As this work is going on, they translate scripture into the new language. Ultimately, some 20-30 years later, the tribal group has a written language, are literate, and have God's word to read.

Can you imagine what extraordinary commitment, perseverance, patience and devotion to the cause of Christ these missionaries must have! Why would someone devote his or her life to this work? Because God loves everyone and wants multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language to join together before His throne in praise (Revelation 7:9).

Living Eternal Life Now

Henri Nouwen"s Here and Now is a collection of short essays on spirituality. He deals with many topics, but they all boil down to how we live in the presence of God and through the in-dwelling of the Spirit, how we embrace spiritual realities in the midst of what we think of as "real life." Nouwen understands and communicates beautifully the truth that the most real parts of life are spiritual and eternal, not the passing physical stuff we see and touch every day, and more importantly, that our calling as followers of Jesus is to engage the physical world and those living in it in light of spiritual truth.

Nouwen writes, "When my clear goal is the eternal life, that life must be reachable right now, where I am, because eternal life is life in and with God, and God is where I am here and now." His point is that we who know Jesus and have accepted God's gift of new life, have already entered into our eternal life, we have been born anew in the Spirit and will never again be separated from God by anything. We don't wait for the eternal life to begin after our physical death; we embrace life in Christ now, knowing it will last for eternity. This is just what Jesus said in John 3:16: whoever believes in Jesus "shall not perish but have eternal life." We who believe have this eternal life right now.

And this perspective has to change things. We can't look any longer at money or possessions or suffering or illness or accomplishments or, most of all, people without differentiating between those things that endure and those that will pass away. If we are living eternal life right now, it changes what things we value most highly and hold most dearly. It's okay to enjoy the consumables of this world, so long as we don't cling to them as though they also had eternal life.

U2 sings a powerful song about a woman held in prison for her religious and political views. The song deals with releasing temporary things to take hold of eternal things. It speaks of holding on to "all that you can't leave behind" as you anticipate "a place that has to be believed to be seen." We look forward to heaven and the glorious, unveiled presence of God, but even as we wait, we take hold of those things that truly matter, that won't fade away, those things we can't leave behind.

God's Victories

I have been lamenting to God recently that our church needs a victory. We need to see His power and grace show up in a mighty way. There are always many reasons to feel gloomy, especially with a troubled economy, international unrest and a culture in moral free fall. In addition, our church has travelled down a rocky road for the past several years, and we have seen some of our dearest friends lose battles with illness or suffer under financial burdens. In a troubled world, we could use a victory about now.

That's what I have been telling God lately - or to put it more accurately, that's the desire God placed in my heart as I have prayed for His church. He knows what we need before we ask, and as God works through all things to bring about the good He desires, He knows just when and how to bless us with His transforming grace.

All this to say God has been answering our prayers in wonderful ways the past few weeks and is bringing victories to His people and His church. Three of our beloved brothers have received God's healing touch. Steve, Juan Carlos and Joe each faced a frightening diagnosis; doctors feared for their lives. But we prayed, and God answered! Each is now a living testimony to God's goodness and power.

We trust all things into God's loving hands, knowing that He will never let us slip from His grasp. Healing does not always come for our physical bodies, and not all problems evaporate by God's miraculous decree. But no matter what we face, our Lord holds us in His love for eternity.