Standing in the Need of Prayer

 June 8, 2021

 

Hello church family and friends near and far!

I hope and pray that you are enjoying the sunshine and the growing things all around us. It brings a lot of work in yard maintenance and weed control, so I hope you have good help around you for that. Even though it’s work God gave us from the beginning, that some of us enjoy, not all of us are up to the physical work of it. Personally, I have a new appreciation of how much work it is just to bend down, and then to get back up again! And an associated new appreciation for letting the growing things go wild as God intended. Only sort of kidding.

I had my very last (praise the Lord) chemo treatment last week, and I want to tell you that I absolutely felt your prayers! Though it has been no fun at all, it has also not been nearly as difficult as I feared, or as others endure. That is all because of your care and faithfulness. Prayers work, friends. The next six months will be radiation and immunotherapy, and then it’s DONE. Halleluia. Already starting to feel my energy coming back, and though I know I won’t be 100% for a long time yet, I fully expect to be better. Thanks, too, for your leadership and teamwork in keeping our ministries strong and healthy. Epworth is SUCH an important part of our community, and you are a source of light and hope.

This month is a special one, for a whole bunch of reasons. A bunch of different historical events
mark June as a time of welcoming the outcast, of healing divisions, of moving toward perfection in love. The first Memorial Day was in June, held by a group of newly-freed slaves who wanted to honor those who had given their lives to save them. June 19, also known as “Juneteeth,” is the day slaves were officially freed in the last holdout state of Texas. June 12 is National Loving Day, which marks the day in 1967 when interracial marriage was finally made legal. And though it started with something ugly and violent, June has become a celebration of love, acceptance, and diversity in Pride celebrations all over the world. In worship we will be singing and praising God for loving us all, with good old hymns and gospel songs, many of the best of which come from the Black gospel tradition. Like Standing in the Need of Prayer, which we will sing this week.

Like many African American spirituals, God only knows when Standing in the Need of Prayer was written, and by whom. As far as I can tell, it was first published in 1925, but it had been sung for decades before that. Here is a quote from an anonymous enslaved person, about this song:

I pray now and just tell God to take me and do his will, for he knows every secret of my heart. He knows what we stand most in need of before we ask for it, and if we trust him, he will give us what we ought to have in good season (Johnson, 1969, p. 58; cited in Guenther, 2016, p. 124).

            We all need it, don’t we? Every one of us, standing in the need of prayer, trusting God to help us in trouble and grow our hearts to love God and one another truer and better. May our prayers this week (and always) bring us ever closer to the Lord our God, and to perfection in love.

Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

Judges: Lessons from the Worst Book in the Bible

Part 2: A Smashing Salvation

This week, we continue our worship series through the strange, strange  book of Judges. There are some of the most well-known stories in scripture there (like Sampson and Delilah), and also some very, very weird stuff. Some violent and hard to understand stuff. Some wild and wonderful characters. It will be good to study, and good to talk about as we look for the wisdom and the grace of God in it. This week, we will hear the story of Deborah and Barak and Jael in Judges 4-5. See you there!

 

After worship, stay for coffee and fellowship, and then adult Sunday School. Stay tuned for info about kids Sunday School and new Bible studies beginning!

Ordinary People, Strangely Warmed

 May 24, 2021

 

Happy Aldersgate Day church family, and friends near and far!

Probably none but the most dedicated church nerd would know what Aldersgate Day is, so lemme explain. First, some background.

John Wesley, Methodism’s grumpy but faithful founder, was raised by an Anglican priest and his wife, and grew up to be an Anglican priest himself. While in university completing his education, and before he was officially ordained, he and his brother Charles (who also eventually became an Anglican priest) started up the “Holy Club” that would become the foundation of a major revitalization of the church. Rather than just leaving one’s Christian faith in church on Sunday, the brothers and those who joined them longed for a real, vital, lifegiving faith that made a real impact on individuals’ lives. They covenanted to pray together, to confess their sins to each other, and to follow Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 25 by visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, and caring in other ways for those in need.

These class meetings became a rapidly growing movement, and after a few years the Wesley brothers went to the colonies to “evangelize the natives” and start their successful movement there. In 1735 they landed in Savanna, Georgia to serve a church there at the invitation of James Oglethorpe, who had founded the colony. It didn’t go well. 

Two years later, John was kicked out of Georgia and headed back to England, discouraged and feeling that he had lost his faith. Having encountered on the voyage a group of German Christians known as Moravians, and being very impressed with their faith, he found himself on May 24, 1738 at worship at a Moravian church in Aldersgate Street in London. There, during a sermon on the book of Romans, he writes that he felt assurance of Jesus’ love for him for the very first time.

 

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

 

Can you imagine? After being raised a Christian, and spending 12 years as an ordained priest, and leading an explosively successful movement that was revitalizing the church in profound ways, he just now truly felt that he was loved and saved by Jesus. And that, beloved, is Aldersgate Day.

Our Christian history is filled with imperfectly faithful people who are loved and used by God. So if you ever question your own faith, your own value, your own belovedness, remember Aldersgate Day. And may your heart be strangely warmed.

Singing our great Redeemer’s praise with far more than a thousand tongues,

Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

Ordinary People in the Hands of an Extraordinary God

This week, we begin our study of the book of Judges. There are some of the most well-known stories in scripture there, and also some very, very weird stuff. Some violent and hard to understand stuff. Some wild and wonderful characters. It will be good to study, and good to talk about as we look for the wisdom and the grace of God in it. See you there!

 

After worship, stay for coffee and fellowship! A bunch of wonderful folks have signed up to provide goodies, and set up and clean up so that we can spend time together. As we continue to observe Covid protocols, we will have masked and gloved servers to give you your refreshments, and we encourage everyone to keep friendly distance from those outside your household. The rules are a bit vague right now, so let’s grant each other an extra measure of grace and kindness as we navigate it all.