Westwood Message–11/18/2010

Thank You’s

Thanks to everyone who helped with preparations, cooking, cleanup, and all the other details for the Harvest Dinner last Sunday evening, November 24. We had a number of guests, and everyone had an enjoyable evening. Thanks for all your hard work.

Christine and I would like to thank all of you who blessed us with cards and gifts for Pastor Appreciation Month in October. We are glad to be ministering with you and look forward to how God continues to work through Westwood’s ministry.

WCC’s 2010 Kids Christmas Play
“Toooooooooo Busy”!!!Sunday, December 19, 9:30 am Worship Service

Westwood’s children have begun practicing for the 2010 Kids Christmas Play which will be performed during our December 19 worship service. Between now and then, our elementary and middle school children will meet downstairs for the entire worship service each Sunday for a class and play practice.

Christmas Decorating Set for December 3 & 4

Christine Henes will supervise “Hanging of the Greens” at the church on December 3 and 4 starting at 9 am. She needs Middle and High School youth, and men and women to assist in a variety of ways:

1. Set up of 2 long tables on the platform on Friday am and removed and put away Saturday afternoon, the 4th.

2. Individuals to donate fresh cut cedar, pine greens and red twig dogwood branches. I would like to have at least 2 yard bags full of evergreens Please have these bagged and at the church on Friday, December 3.

3. An individual to donate enough premade fresh evergreen roping to go around the double entry doors. Please deliver Friday December 3 am or Saturday December 4th am.

4. An individual to donate white outdoor lights to generously wrap the cross outside on Segoe Road.

5. An individual to wrap the Segoe Road cross in white lights on Friday December 3, remove and store them after January 6.

6. Helpers who will climb a ladder, fluff greens, and bows, assist in making arrangements, iron, pound nails, etc.

7. Helpers please bring scissors, pruners, wire cutters, iron, ironing board, glue guns, finishing nails, hammer.

8. Bring a sack lunch.

9. Work days will be January 7 and 8 to remove and store Christmas decorations.

Roger Wisegarver is Making Progress In His Recovery

Roger Wisergarver continues to make progress in his recovering from Guillen Barre syndrome. Last week Brenda shared the photo below of Roger in his new wheelchair and of them the two of them with their new wheelchair accessible van. Both the wheelchair and van were purchased with the benefit for Roger, for which we took a special offering.

Brenda also sent us this thank you note:

Your continued prayer and generosity are appreciated by us so much!! You all have been a God send.

We will come visit soon.

Our Love,

Roger & Brenda Wisegarver

Upcoming Westwood Events

November 21 11:00 AM – Budget Presentation to the congregation
                      4:00 PM – Singing at Clare Bridge
December 5 11:00 AM – Westwood’s Annual Meeting
                   12:00 Noon – Keenager’s Potluck
December 11 9:00 AM – Christmas for Kids
December 19 9:30 AM – Children’s Christmas Program
December 24 5:00 PM – Christmas Eve Service
December 26 12:00 Noon – Potluck for Chardel
                                  Johnston’s Fortieth Anniversary

FINDING THE HOLE IN OUR GOSPEL

A study listed the top ten things people forget when they travel. The items listed include tickets, passport, extra socks, cash, medication, a toothbrush, and others. Have you ever forgotten anything when you travel? I suspect most people who travel can tell a story about going on a business trip, camping trip, or vacation and forgetting to pack something pretty important.

This month, I would like for you to consider whether you are forgetting something in the Gospel, and to consider pursuing a discussion on the subject with your congregation. Have you ever felt like there is something missing in your walk with Christ? This is the issue Richard Stearns develops in his very worthwhile book The Hole In Our Gospel. He explores the question “What does God expect of me?” He says this in the book’s introduction:

“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 asks us 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.”

I discussed Stearns’ book in my September 2009 column. Since, then, a new resource has been published to enable congregations to have their own discussion of the themes of his book. Besides the book, you can use videos in which Stearns discusses his ideas, a small group study guide, sermon ideas for a six-week series, and other resources. You can access some of the material and order items in quantity at www.sixweekquest.com.

This is not the first time a writer has suggested we might be missing something of what God expects of us. Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Micah wrote that the people of his day were missing something vital to the heart of God, and God made it clear what he expects. Micah 6:8 says, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Jesus also saw a hole in the faith of the religious leaders of his day. In Matthew 23:23, he said, “’Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.’”

Stearns’ ideas grow out of Jesus’ mission statement for his ministry as found in Luke 4 when he reads from Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth. There are three realms of life that the W.H.O.L.E. Gospel covers as seen in Jesus’ quotation from Isaiah 61. Jesus said he came to fulfill them and intends for us to find all three in how we live out the Gospel.

(1) The whole Gospel covers the spiritual – Jesus came to “preach good news to the poor.” We need to proclaim the Gospel to the spiritually poor, while not forgetting our own spiritual poverty. This is perhaps the easiest aspect of our mission to recognize.

(2) The whole Gospel covers the physical – Jesus came to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. Another word for the Gospel is this sense is mercy. We are to be merciful to everyone who is hurting in life. We dare not forget this aspect of the Gospel.

(3) The whole Gospel covers the social – Jesus came to release the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. This aspect of the Gospel calls for justice. The church must always work for the justice of oppressed peoples.

Consider digging into Stearns’ book and take the Six Week Quest with your congregation. Take a look with your friends at the make-up of the W-H-O-L-E Gospel.

Westwood Message–11/4/2010

Harvest Dinner is November 14 at 5:30 PM

Our annual Harvest Dinner will take place on November 14 at 5:30 PM. Plan to come and bring family and/or friends. 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. Invite your family and friends to come and eat with you. We have invited the campus ministry family at Koinonia House with Wisconsin Christian Campus Ministries. The main meal will be provided. Plan for a great evening together.

WCC’s 2010 Kids Christmas Play

“Toooooooooo Busy”!!!

Sunday, December 19, 9:30 am Worship Service

Practice will begin on Sunday, November 14, 2010. Grade School and Middle School kids will meet downstairs during the entire worship service through Sunday, December 12. They will have a short lesson and then play practice following until the end of the service.

Practices will go through Sunday, Dec. 12. Parents, please send your children downstairs when you arrive for church each Sunday for these five Sundays. We will have only 5 weeks to put this together, so it’s IMPORTANT that the kids are at church for practices.

Sandy Polcyn and Kris Wales will be directing the play for the kids this year. If you have any questions, please ask Sandy.

We’re looking forward to working with the kids for Christ through Drama!

Sandy and Kris

New Roof for White Oaks Lodge at Rock River Christian Camp

Rock River Christian Camp needs volunteers to help tear off the old roof and to put a new roof on the White Oaks Lodge during the next two-three weeks. Please call (815-493-6622) or e-mail (office@rockrivercc.net) Leslie at the camp office to let them know if you are able to go and help. The roof may not survive the winter, so this project needs to be done before the cold winter weather sets in. The camp staff is willing to feed you if you are there over mealtimes.

Upcoming Westwood Events

November 13 - 7:30 AM – Men’s Breakfast
November 13 - 9:00 AM – Women’s Mug ‘n’ Muffin Fellowship, Church Office
November 14 - 5:30 PM – Westwood’s Annual Harvest Dinner
November 19 - 6:30 PM – S.E.R.I.O.U.S. Women
November 21 - 10:45 AM – Budget Presentation to the congregation
November 21 - 4:00 PM – Singing at Clare Bridge
December 4 - 10:45 AM – Westwood’s Annual Meeting
December 4 - 12:00 Noon – Keenager’s Potluck
December 11 - 9:00 AM – Christmas for Kids
December 19 - 9:30 AM – Children’s Christmas Program
December 24 - 5:00 PM – Christmas Eve Service
December 26 - 12:00 Noon – Potluck for Dick & Chardel Johnston’s Fortieth Anniversary

MAKE CARING PERSONAL

In his book The Hole In Our Gospel, Richard Stearns tells about a simple behavioral experiment conducted in 2006 by three researchers:

A test group of ordinary people was divided into three subgroups. The first read the story and saw a photo of a poor, starving seven-year-old African girl named Rokia. The second group was given a statistical portrait of seventeen million Africans in four countries who were desperately hungry because of crop failures and food shortages. They were told about yet another four million who were homeless. In other words, group two read about hunger and suffering on a massive scale. The third group was given the story about the little girl Rokia but was also given the statistical information given to group two. Finally, participants in all three groups were asked to donate money to relieve the suffering. Amazingly, the group that heard only Rokia’s story gave the most money. The group that was given the statistics about twenty-one million suffering people gave the least, and the group that received both pieces of information was only slightly more generous than the statistics-only group. The story of one child was more compelling than the suffering of millions.

People will depersonalize a large group of people and thus respond to them with far less compassion than they will when a person’s life circumstances become personal to them. When we realize this, we can better understand some of the appalling realities of our world and how the unthinkable becomes possible. Does this allow, for instance, for the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide? Might this explain slavery — and how Christian people tolerated and defended it for so long?

As Christians we need to see beyond the mass scale of such tragedies and personalize such things as poverty by understanding that the lives of people are affected — not just large numbers of nameless people.

This is how Jesus saw people. Matthew 9:36 says, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

So, as we discover “The Hole In Our Gospel” through the current sermon series, I encourage you to make poverty and disease and helplessness personal. Many of you are doing so by helping with our food pantry or ministering to “the least of these” in other ways. Get to know someone who is hungry, thirsty, a stranger, in need of clothes, sick, or in prison and care for them. God has rescued us from the helplessness of sin and calls us to care for people who need to be rescued. Make caring personal.

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.