Westwood Message–10/28/2010

Clip More! Earn More! Box Tops for Education Support Mountain Mission School

DID YOU KNOW… that Westwood collects Campbell Soup labels and Box Tops For Education for Mountain Mission School in Grundy, Virginia? There are collection boxes in the foyer for the labels and box tops. Labels and box tops have helped purchase many items for the Mission School. $1504.00 has been earned toward educational items with Box Tops so far in 2010.

Mountain Mission School reclaims the lives of seriously disadvantaged children. Since 1921, Mountain Mission School has cared for children born in nearly every state, the District of Columbia and many foreign countries around the globe. Sam Hurley, the founder of Mountain Mission School was himself an orphan in Appalachia, and many children with roots in Appalachia are served by the school.

Westwood has connections with the school: Ken and Christine Henes traveled to the World Convention of Christian Churches/Churches of Christ with the Mountain Mission Choir in 2004. The students were a blessing, demonstrating Christ’s love where ever we went. Marion and Marilyn Greaser’s son, Scott, served at the Mountain Mission School for a time.

Please save your labels and box tops to help support this important work. For further information on the school check their website at http://www.mountainmissionschool.org. Should you have questions about the project, see Marcia Larson or Christine Henes.

Harvest Dinner Is November 14

Our annual Harvest Dinner will take place on November 14 at 5:30 PM. Plan to come and bring a friend. You can sign up to come and eat, bring a pie, help set up, or help clean up and put things away. Sign up on Sunday or contact Chardel at the church office. Invited your family and friends to come and eat with you. The main meal will be provided. Plan for a great evening together.

Daylight Savings Time Ends On November 7 At 2:00 AM

Late afternoon – early evening darkness is coming to Madison beginning November 7. Don’t miss it. All you have to do to experience this annual phenomenon is to turn your clocks back one hour before going to bed on Saturday evening, November 6. Then you will find darkness settling in one hour earlier the next day. It is all the result of daylight savings time ending for 2010.

Vote Next Tuesday, November 2

As you probably know from the many political ads that have been on TV and radio, next Tuesday, November 2, is election day in America. I just want to encourage you to vote. Elections have consequences for national and state policies, so be sure that your vote is counted.

New Information Available on Westwood’s Web Site

The Caller, our monthly newsletter, and these Westwood Messages are now available on our web site, so you can go there at any time time to check them out or send other people to the website who ask you about the congregation. They are on the Publications page. Recordings of the most recent sermons are also now available for download or for listening to online. God to the Sermon Recordings page.

There are also some documents on the same page that you can download to read about what we believe and teach. All of those documents can be printed to read for yourself or to share with others. Find out more about baptism, the Lord’s Supper, what kind of church we are, and other information.

Westwood Message–October 21, 2010

Great Communion – Great Day

We had a good crowd and spirited worship service for Great Communion 2 last Sunday at Mandrake Road Church of Christ. Here is some of what took place:

• Four singers from the gathered churches led an a capella worship service with everyone in full voice as they worshiped the Lord.

• We took an offering toward this year’s CROP Hunger Walk which took place on Sunday in Madison. The offering totaled $763.00.

• The preachers from the four churches, Roy Ratcliff from Mandrake Road Church of Christ, Lance Hawley from Emmaus Christian Fellowship, Bob Lawrence from Community Christian Church, and I shared a message from Ephesians 4 on “The Nature of a Unified Church.” We discussed (1) the church’s calling; (2) the church’s unity; (3) the church’s ministry; and (4) the church matures.
• We concluded the service with communion, following a thoughtful meditation by Keith Schoville on the importance of gathering weekly and taking the Lord’s Supper.

Everyone enjoyed the rich fellowship and worship in a full building. I can think of no more appropriate way for us to gather as sister churches than for us to discuss the theme of the unity that we all share in Christ. How should that unity cause us to live for Christ? It was good to think together about that.

I can also think of no more appropriate way to demonstrate that unity than to share together in taking communion. We remember the Lord’s death, of course, when we take communion, and it is his death that binds us together as brothers and sisters in his name. What an encouragement it is to know that other believers in our city are united with us in Christ.

New Sermon Series, “The Hole In Our Gospel,” Begins October 24

On Sunday, we will begin a Six Week Quest as I begin a sermon series, “The Hole in Our Gospel.” Through the series I will develop themes from Scripture that Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, develops in his book The Hole In Our Gospel.

A few years ago, Stearns found a “hole” in his Gospel as he struggled with a decision to leave his position as CEO of Lenox, the fine china company, to become president of World Vision, a ministry to the poorest of the poor in our world. He found that there was something lacking in how he was living out his Christian life. He identified the “hole” in his Gospel and sought to begin living out the WHOLE Gospel. We will explore that theme from the Scriptures for the next six weeks.

Harvest Dinner Is November 14

Our annual Harvest Dinner will take place on November 14 at 5:30 PM. Plan to come and bring a friend. Beginning Sunday, you can sign up to come and eat, bring a pie, help set up, or help clean up and put things away. The main meal will be provided. Plan for a great evening together.

A Rescue That Captured the World’s Attention

Last Sunday, at the end of the message we delivered at Great Communion 2, I spoke briefly about last week’s rescue of the miners in Chile. One billion people around the world, including me, watched on television and the Internet as the 33 miners were rescued from the mine where they had been trapped for 69 days. Those miners went to work on the day this drama began, as they had many days before, with no thought that the mine would collapse that day and they would have no communication with the outside world for 17 days.

Over the course of two months, their rescuers worked diligently first to drill a shaft down to the miners in order to establish communication with them. Then they painstakingly drilled a larger shaft that a capsule large enough for a single man to fit in. One-by-one they brought each man to the surface. Family and friends would greet each one as he emerged from the capsule and the miner would be taken for medical evaluation. As each one was taken away by the medical people, the men operating the capsule would already be sending it back down the shaft to get the next miner. They literally rescued those miners from a pit and brought them to safety.

That rescue operation is a good picture of the church. Medical people and miners all used their gifts to rescue people. That is what we are to do in the church. The salvation of those who come to Christ is far greater than being rescued from a mine. We are to establish communication with those who do not know Christ, and then work to bring them to the knowledge of salvation through Christ. When people are welcomed into the family of Christ, we are then to go back to work to reach others.. Christ literally rescues people from the pit and brings them to safety, and he uses us to accomplish this task. Let’s continue working to that end.

If you would like to read two good commentaries from Christian leaders on the Chilean rescue, you can find one by Charles Colson at BreakPoint and one by Mark Taylor, editor of Christian Standard at their website.

New Sermon Series at Westwood

“The Hole In Our Gospel,” Begins October 24

It began with a call to ministry with World Vision; it led to a world-wide ministry that continues today; it brought about an excellent book that challenges Christians to action; now it is coming to Westwood in the form of a sermon series that asks the question “What does God expect of me.”

After becoming president of World Vision, a Christian organization that ministers world-wide to the poorest of the poor, Richard Stearns found his view of being a Christian challenged and deepened. It led him to write a book he called The Hole In Our Gospel that challenges the church. The themes of the book have been developed into a Six Week Quest that we will begin on October 24.

The main thing that you need to know about the theme is summed up in this paragraph from the introduction to Stearn’s book:

“The question, ‘What does God expect of me?’ is a very profound one – not just for me, but for everyone who claims to follow Christ. Jesus had a lot to say about it. Yes, He did give us deep insights into the character of God and our relationship with Him as well, but He also spoke at length about God’s expectations, our values, and how we are to live in the world. So how are we to live? What kind of relationship are we to have with a holy God? What is God asking for, really, from you and me? Much more than church attendance. More than prayer too. More than belief, and even more than self-denial. God ask for everything. He requires a total life commitment from those who would be His followers. In fact, Christ calls us to be His partners in changing our world, just as He called the Twelve to change their world two thousand years ago.”

This series will challenge your thinking, challenge your actions, challenge your life. Come and discover the hole in your Gospel and learn what God expects of you.

A LIFELONG WALK WITH GOD

During a recent study of the life of Joseph, I also took a new look at the life of Jacob, his father. Jacob’s life not only influenced his son, Joseph, and prepared Joseph to become a great leader and a man who trusted God completely, he also shows the way for us to walk with God through the highs and lows of life. As such, he can also help us show people in the church and seekers that we influence for Christ how to have a lifelong walk with God.

Jacob certainly had some issues in his life. It began with his name which means “the one who deceives.” He lived up to his name as a liar and a cheat. Jacob deceived his father into giving him the family blessing that by all rights belonged to Esau. He then had to run from Esau, and ended up with the family of Laban who would deceive Jacob into a marriage with Rachel. Laban and Jacob would deceive each for years until Jacob finally deceived Laban one more time and then took his family and returned to Canaan. Even on that journey, Jacob’s family had plenty of tragedy.

To put it in contemporary terms, Jacob had a dysfunctional family. He reminds me of the people who come to God because their lives have been torn apart from difficult marriages to troubling children, from job difficulties to bad business decisions and relationships, from financial woes to hurt feelings. Even we who follow Christ face these challenges.

Yet Jacob had four memorable encounters with God that shaped his life:

(1) When Jacob fled from Esau and stopped for the night at Luz, he had a dream of a stairway reaching to heaven. There the Lord spoke to him and told him he would give Jacob the land on which he slept. The Lord promised Jacob, he would be with him and watch over him wherever he went. Jacob’s response was to name the place Bethel, “the house of God.”

(2) As Jacob brought his family to Canaan after leaving Laban’s household, he spent the night alone. That night a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man could not overpower Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip, leaving him with a permanent limp. Jacob would not let the man go until he blessed him, and the man changed his name from Jacob, “the deceiver,” to Israel, “the one who struggles with God.”

(3) As Jacob and his family moved into Canaan, God appeared to him and told him to settle at Bethel. Once again God appeared to him at Bethel and told him again that he would bless him. Then Jacob changed the name of the place once more to El Bethel, “The God of the House of God.”

Despite the difficulties Jacob faced all through his life, I imagine these encounters with God stayed with him. Joseph surely learned about them, took them to heart, and determined to walk with God himself.

Yet Jacob continued to face his own troubles, including losing Joseph, his most-loved son, through the deception of his other sons. He finally had to make two decisions to send his sons to Egypt for food. The second one is especially difficult because the “prime minister” of Egypt demands that they only return if they bring the youngest son. Jacob sends Benjamin with them, making the difficult decision to trust God. The text in Genesis tells us he was once again called Israel.

(4) Then Jacob has one more encounter with God. He has found out his son, Joseph, is alive and is the “prime minister” of Egypt. When Joseph sends for him to move the family to Egypt, he sets out and spends the night at Beersheba, the southern-most point in Israel. There God appears to him again and promises that he will go down to Egypt with Jacob and will bring the nation that will come from Jacob’s family, back to the land of promise.

Most of us and most of the people we minister to will face difficulty and tragedy in life. We may face those things after we have walked with God and had some great moments with him. When the difficulties come, we need to remember those experiences. We need to teach people to remember how God has changed them. Our early days with God do not need to fade as distance memories. They need to constantly remind us, as they did for Jacob, that God will walk with us through all of life. Teach people to have a lifelong walk with God.

Westwood Message

Great Communion Coming October 17

Great Communion 2 will be hosted by Mandrake Road Church of Christ on October 17 at 10:00 AM. That will our Sunday morning service that day, and I hope you will plan to attend. The worship service will feature a worship service led by people from the four congregations attending and a message that will be delivered by ministers from the four churches. We will conclude the service with a time of communion together, and we will take an offering that will go toward this year’s Crop Walk, which will be held that day in Madison.

Mandrake Road Church of Christ is located on the north side of Lake Mendota at 4301 Mandrake Road, about three blocks north of Northport Drive. We will have maps and directions available at Westwood on Sunday. If you would prefer to have a ride to and from the service, please contact us at the Westwood office, and we will make arrangements.

Madison CROP Hunger Walk on October 17

Westwood had participated for a few years in the Madison CROP Hunger Walk. This year, we will be participating with a twist. We will be walking, but our fundraising will come from the offering taken that day at Great Communion 2. If you are going to walk this year, meet at First Congregational Church, 1609 University Avenue, Madison, at 12:45 PM on October 17 to register. The walk will begin at 1:30 PM. The Madison fundraising goal this year is $70,000.

CROP Hunger Walks help children and families worldwide -- and right here in the U.S. -- to have food for today, while building for a better tomorrow.

Each year some two million CROP Hunger Walkers, volunteers, and sponsors put their hearts and soles in motion, raising over $16 million per year to help end hunger and poverty around the world and in their own communities.

And you are part of it!

Have You Seen the New Senior Citizen Cell Phone?

For our senior citizens: if you are looking for a cell phone that you will instantly know how to operate, here it is. No more figuring out how to make or answer a simple phone call.