30 hours without food

this past weekend. our youth group hosted 30 hr famine. this is a very popular event that many youth group have. instead of giving this year to world vision and really never able to see a change from it, i decided to pick a local food bank that the youth group has helped out a couple of times in the last few months. this food pantry although located in a small town of maybe 1500 people serves an average of 50 families per month.
so we wanted to do something that would affect our community as a large.

on friday we had a benefit concert where admission was $2 or a canned good. through that we raise about $200 and received approximately 200 canned goods. it was an amazing concert and we had a lot of fun doing it. on top of the concert teens raised support which amounted to another $300 give or take a few dollars. i can not wait to deliver all of this to sandy creek food pantry. so not only did we raise money for a good cause we had a great outreach to teens. we had about 130 people at the concert. i gave a short talk on how we need to help save lives not just temporarily by giving money and food but how we need to alsso think about saving lives eternally. i know a lot of seeds were planted so please pray for this.

did that just happen?

i keep trying to tell myself this must be a dream. did that just really happen? to start out i must tell you that i am the only pastor at the church this week. bud is in maine dealing with family matters and greg is in pennsylvannia on a short break with his family.

this morning started as a all tuesdays do. i woke up for band of brothers (mens bible study) at 6am. and then headed to breakfast with a few of the guys from there. my meal had just arrived. i salted the eggs and took a bit of bacon as my cell phone rang. steve (our church treasure) was on the line to tell me charlie bates had passed away. remember i am the only pastor in town. so i hang up and break the news to the guys around the table.

charlie is a great individual. he is in his late 70's. he is one of those guys that will always have a smile on his face.

so i scarf down some of my breakfast. chuck and i head over to charlies and doris to consol doris. on the way their i call bud to tell him. we arrive at the house. well she is not there. we figure she is with the body making arrangments for everything. so i track down charlies son and ask them about the situation. he doesnt know anything.

i receive another call from the church secretary (wanda). she tells me that charlie did not die but yet only through out his back. so i am relieved but very perplexed trying to figure out how someone came to the conclusion that charlie had passed away.

steve, had heard it on his police scanner. ladies and gentlemen this leaves me to my last point. take a baseball bat andn beat the scanner to pieces.

back on the wagon

i wanted to dive a little more into the issue of drinking. we discussed it a little a couple posts back. i think we can all agree that drinking alcohol is not a sin. i know plenty of good solid christians who have controll over there drinking and it does not affect their spiritual lives the least bit. however many lives are destroyed by drinking, and how these lives become destroyed are very much sinful acts.

a couple days ago i sat and talked to a guy in his early fifties about his father. his father was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet until he was drunk. he was mean and abusive. this is a sin. the same drunk would not pay any of the bills with his paycheck. he would spend it all on alcohol forcing the family to get by on the mothers wages as a waitress. this is a sin.

i have also known a few families who have lost love ones because they have been in accidents caused by a drunk driver. this is a sin.

i struggle with the idea of drinking alcohol because it seems like everybody's personality changes when they drink. maybe they lose reign of their tongue, which is a sin. they can lose self control, which is a sin.

i will never look down on someone because they decide to have a drink of alcohol. but i still do not understand any good thing that comes from alcohol. a lot of people drink wine because in moderation is good for your heart. but i have also heard that the same effect is seen in taking an asprin.

as for being a wesleyan, in a denomination that believes in the idea of holiness as being set apart from the "worldly ways" i believe there are two good ways that are not sins but the world can see as a good witness from our actions. one is drinking which i have just discussed. people will respect you for your choice of not drinking. the other is swearing, putting4 letter adjectives into a sentence to emphasize you stance on something. if the wesleyan church is going to be set apart then there should be some actions behind it.

members only

it has come to my attention in the past few weeks that we in the wesleyan church are possibly in a bigger crisis then i thought. it has a lot to do with the idea of drinking and membership. before i go further let me tell you a story of some of the things that have gone on at pulaski wesleyan in the last 6 months or so.

we have 11 adult groups that meat in homes weekly to discuss sermons, have bible studies and create community, which we call mini-church. during one of the minichurchs membership was discussed and some in the group found out that the wesleyan stance on drinking.

one of these couples left the church over the idea. another couple decided to continue attending but at least for now not consider being a member. we like many other churches have tons of people within the church that partakes in the occasional beer or glass of wine. which i have no problem with.

we also have a couple in the church. the husband a covenant member and the wife a community member. reasons of which you might be able to figure out. not that the wife is a lush or that she even drinks, but she does want to necessarily feel covicted about the concept of having a drink.

i do not want to address the idea of member being able to drink. what i want to address is the concept of why do we have the covenant and community member. the couple that left the church did not leave the church because we say to be a member you must give up drinking. they had a problem with the idea of being second class members. what is the purpose for community membership. you still cannot vote or be involved on the board.

so what happens with all those in the church that do have an occasional beer?

more to be posted on this idea later. what do you think?