But in this new year, there are other changes as well. We have a new coordinator for our Greeter’s/Newcomer’s ministry. Niki Jones has agreed to take over this important ministry and find ways we can be more effective at greeting, informing and incorporating newcomers into Christ the Redeemer. We also have a new paid staff member. After years of dedicated volunteer service to our youth, Matt Olszewski comes on board as a paid member of staff ministering to our teenagers. We look forward to a growing and fruitful youth program in 2010.

After reviewing the gifts to the Promised Land Campaign in 2009 and looking to our future building campaign on the Rowlett campus, I believe 2010 can be the year we pay off the loan on our Miller Road property. We still have over $200,000 left on our note, but as we look to the call God has given us, part of that mission is reaching out to those who need the Good News in Rowlett. Let us pray together that God will grant us the Promised Land so that we can glorify Him in our mission to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

The family at Christ the Redeemer has grown considerably in the past two years and there is much more for us ahead. May God give us the grace and strength to continue to know Him and to make Him known.

Joyfully Yours in His Service,

Fr. Lawrence+

Rector’s note: In today’s world, nobody wants to hear about Hell and most preachers do not want to preach about Hell either. It’s not politically correct nor does it encourage most people in their Christian journey. However, Hell is a biblical concept that must continue to be taught and preached if we are to have a balanced view of God’s character. Given my sermon on October 11 about “What happens when you die“, the topic of Hell seems to be an appropriate follow-up. This is one of the best written pieces I’ve seen about Hell and gives very positive reasons for why Christians should believe in and understand Hell for their own spiritual development. I encourage you to take the time to read it carefully.

The Christian understanding of hell is crucial for understanding your own heart, for living at peace in the world, and for knowing the love of God.

by Tim Keller

Introduction

One of the things that troubles people most about Christianity is the Christian teaching that God is a judge who consigns people to hell. Basically the objection goes like this: “How can you possibly reconcile the concept of judgment and hell with the idea of a loving God? They just don’t go together.” What do we say to their concern?

When people ask what I believe about hell, one of the things I have said over the years is, “Well, one thing I believe is that the biblical imagery of hell-fire is probably metaphorical.” Immediately the person says, “Whew!” But then I add, “I think it’s metaphorical for something probably infinitely worse than fire.” Then they say, “Huh?”

I believe the Christian understanding of hell is crucial for understanding your own heart, for living at peace in the world, and for knowing the love of God. I know these three things seem very counterintuitive, so let me explain.

Hell is crucial for understanding your own heart.

First of all, understanding hell is crucial to understanding your own heart. The parable in Luke 16:19-31 has two characters: a rich man and a poor man. One of the things that commentators have pointed out for years is that this is the only parable in which a character–the poor man–has a proper name. If you look at all the rest of Jesus’ parables, no one has a proper name assigned to them except this poor man named Lazarus. If one character has a name, you would think the other character–the rich man–would have a name. But he doesn’t. In this parable there is a named character and a nameless character, and the contrast is deliberate.

Let’s focus on the rich man for a moment. He was probably not an atheist or a pagan. At that time in Israel, most rich people would have believed in the God of the Bible. This man would have prayed to the God of the Bible and obeyed the laws of the God of the Bible. But here he is in hell, without a name. Why?

In verse 25, Abraham says to the rich man, “Remember that in your lifetime you had your good things–the things that you built your life on.” For many years philosophers have talked about the summum bonum–the highest good of your life. What is your highest good? What is the thing you really live for? What is your ultimate value? What is that which gives meaning to your life? What is it that gives you a sense of who you are? Whatever your best thing is–the highest thing with the ultimate value–that is what gives you an identity. The rich man in the parable had his good things–he had his good things. Notice the use of the past tense. Status and wealth had been the basis for his identity, and now that the status and wealth are gone, there is no “him” left. He was a rich man, or he was nothing. Without his wealth, he is gone. He is nameless. When you take away his ultimate thing–his wealth and status–he has no identity.

Søren Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher, wrote a book called Sickness unto Death. In it he wrestles with the definition of sin, which he defines as building your identity on anything but God. The traditional definition of sin is breaking God’s law. While Kierkegaard agrees that breaking God’s law is wrong, he wonders whether that’s a sufficient definition. His reason is the Pharisees. Let me paraphrase what Kierkegaard says: The Pharisees follow the law fastidiously, yet they’re lost. Why? The Pharisees serve as their own Savior and Lord to earn their own salvation. They try to put God in the position where, because they are so good, God has to bless them, answer their prayers, give them a good life, and take them to heaven. But when Pharisees try to earn their own salvation by observing the law, they are actually building their identity not on God, but on their moral performance. Their self-worth is based on their morality and their religiosity, and it destroys their character. Why? Because, as Kierkegaard defines it, what they are doing is a sin. They are building their identity on anything besides God. They are turning good things into ultimate things.

I think Kierkegaard was being radically biblical when he came up with his definition for sin. More specifically, I think he was influenced by the thoughts of Romans 6. Kierkegaard points out that if you take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing–if you look at anything in this life and say, “If I have that, then I have importance and value, and if I don’t have that, I am nothing”–you are placing your hope in something other than God. If you look at money, your career, your talents, or your looks; if you look at your relationship with your parents or your children; if you look at power, approval, comfort, or control; if you look at any of these things and make them more fundamental to your significance and security than the love and knowledge of God, then though you may believe in the God of the Bible, pray to the God of the Bible, even obey the laws of the God of the Bible, your faith, the justification of your life, the roots of your identity, what you really worship, is something other than God. This misplaced focus is what starts a spiritual fire in your heart. That’s what the metaphor for fire is about.

But you ask, “What are you talking about–’starts a fire’?” Think about it for a moment. We know a lot about the internal and external devastation of addiction. Disintegration happens, because as the addiction grows stronger, you need more and more of the addictive substance to get more and more of a kick, a high, a sense of satisfaction. So, you do everything you can to get more of the addictive substance. That’s disintegration.

Another part of addiction is isolation. You have to lie and defend yourself. You are always blaming everyone and everything else for your problems. You say, “Nobody understands me, and everybody’s against me!”

Another part of addiction is denial–an inability to see what’s really happening. You get more and more out of touch with reality.

Since most of you are older than ten years old, you may not have seen the animated film The Iron Giant. But I would suggest you watch it, because it’s maybe the best animated movie I’ve ever seen. There’s a part in the film where the Iron Giant says, “Souls don’t die. Souls can’t die.” He’s right, of course. That’s what the Bible says. After death the soul and your personal consciousness go on forever. Now, if both Kierkegaard and The Iron Giant are right–that is, that every single person, religious or irreligious, moral or immoral, is addicted to grounding his or her identity in something other than God, and that the human soul goes on forever–what does that mean? C. S. Lewis puts the two together and offers an answer. He writes that Christianity’s assertion that we are going to go on forever is either true or false. He then goes on to write that if I’m only going to live eighty years or so, there are a good many things not worth bothering about. But that changes if I’m going to go on living forever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse–so gradually that the increase in my lifetime will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years. In fact, if Christianity is true, hell is precisely the correct term for it. Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others, but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer do so. Then there will be no “you” left to criticize or even to enjoy the mood. It will just be the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. You see, it’s not a question of whether God sends us “to hell.” In every one of us there is something growing up which will be hell unless it is nipped in the bud.

All of this is the “fire.” Think about fire for a moment. As you watch a log in the fire, it’s falling apart. Now think about your life. It’s one thing to love a career, but if you build your identity on a career and something goes wrong with it, you feel worthless. You want to throw yourself off a bridge. That’s disintegration. It’s okay to love somebody–or to want to be loved–but if you build your entire identity on that and there’s a problem in your relational life, you won’t just be hurt and wounded like everyone else. You’ll be devastated. You’ll feel worthless, and you’ll want to throw yourself off a bridge. Your good things enslave you. They start to disintegrate you. They start to isolate you. When something gets in the way of them, instead of just being afraid, you’re paralyzed. Instead of just being angry, you’re implacably bitter. Instead of being despondent, you endlessly hate yourself forever and ever. This is the “fire.” Do you not see it in yourself? Do you not see where it’s going?

Whenever he describes hell, C. S. Lewis says that its doors are locked from the inside. That’s the whole idea behind hell. It’s like an addiction. While you say, “This isn’t very good,” you then add, “but I can’t imagine being somewhere else.” That’s hell. It breeds a certain kind of insanity.

Our text confirms this understanding of hell. Just look at the insanity of those in hell–how out of touch with reality they are. Commentators have long noted that the rich man in the parable is astonishingly blind. He is in denial, filled with blame-shifting. Notice that even though Lazarus is in heaven and the rich man is in hell, the rich man is still ordering Lazarus around. He still wants Lazarus to come and cool his tongue. He still expects him to be a servant.

Notice something else: He strongly insinuates that God didn’t give him enough information. When he asks Lazarus to go to his five brothers to warn them about hell, he is subtly hinting that he didn’t get enough information.

Notice one final thing: The rich man does not ask to get out of hell; he tries to get Lazarus in hell. He actually says: It’s not so bad. I really don’t want to be up there with you, Lazarus. But would you please just send somebody down here to give me a little bit of a break?

Let me sum up my thoughts: Hell is a freely-chosen identity based on something else other than God that goes on forever. But even while you disintegrate, you refuse to admit what hell is. You think that it is God who cast you in hell, but it is a self-chosen identity. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in hell choose it. Without that self choice, it wouldn’t be hell.

Let me offer a point of application on how understanding the nature of hell has been incredibly important to me. Seeing myself as a spiritual addict apart from the intervening grace of God has been very important. It is crucial for any addict to know how to deal with what’s going on in his or her life. An addict has to see the seriousness of it all. As Christians, we spend most of our lives watching the fires start to come up, and we just blow on them. That’s basically it! We simply say, “I’ve got to deal with that.” To know what is really going on, though, we will want to extinguish the flames entirely.

Who are you really? Have you got a core identity–a name based in what God has done for you in Jesus? A name based in being a child of the King, in the mission of getting to the new heavens and new earth? Or are you just a businessman or businesswoman? Are you just an artist, a mother, a father? Are you willing to look as deep into yourself as this doctrine is calling you to look? Without the doctrine of hell, I don’t think you can really understand your own heart.

Hell is crucial for living at peace in the world.

Secondly, without the doctrine of hell I don’t think you can really live at peace in this world. Or, to put it another way, the doctrine of hell is a great way to live at peace in this world.

There are many people who are afraid that if you believe in a God of judgment and the doctrine of hell, you will have disdain for classes of people–that you will be oppressive. In an article for The Nation, Wendy Kaminer mentioned an interview she had with Rick Warren, pastor and author of The Purpose-Driven Life. While Wendy liked Warren personally, she still said this to say about his beliefs: “[His faith] is inherently divisive. At the end of the day, non-Christians, however devout, are lost. What are the prospects of equal citizenship for those of us damned by our refusal to be born again?” What she’s saying is, “You can’t treat us as equal citizens if you think we’re lost and have been judged and we’re damned. You’re going to oppress us. You’re going to disdain us. You’re going to feel that it’s okay to marginalize us.”

In some ways this objection is understandable, but it certainly does not understand what the Bible says about hell at all. As we’ve seen already, hell is not something imposed by God in violence. In fact, I find verse 25 of our text intriguing–as have many other commentators. When Abraham looks down from heaven into hell and speaks to this rich man–this absolutely-out-of-touch-with-reality man–notice what he calls him: “Son.” Commentators say there is pathos in Abraham’s use of this word–a real sadness, a sense of tragedy. Anyone who believes the Bible looks with great sadness at people who are on their way to the fire of hell. There is no sense in which we would disdain those who are going–not if we understand what hell is like.

Consider what Miroslav Volf shares in his book Exclusion and Embrace. As a Croatian, Volf had first-hand experience with the terrible violence in the Balkans. He saw people locked in a cycle of vengeance and retaliation for years and years. But in his book he says that the cycle of retaliation was not fueled by a belief in a God of judgment. It was fueled by a lack of belief in a God of judgment. He writes: “If God were not angry at injustice, that God would not be worthy of worship. The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that judgment is legitimate only when it comes from God. My thesis, that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance, will be unpopular with many, but it takes the quiet of a suburban home to believe that human nonviolence results from a belief in God’s refusal to judge. In a land soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die with other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.”

Volf is saying that if you’ve talked to people who have seen their homes burned, their family members killed and raped, how are you going to keep them from picking up the sword and being sucked into the cycle of violence and retaliation? What are you going to say? Are you going to say, “Well, you know, violence doesn’t solve anything?” Not only will such moralizing not touch their hearts, it shows no concern for justice. Anybody who has been wronged says justice has to be done. Volf says the only resource he knows that is powerful enough to pacify the human heart’s desire for justice, while at the same time can keep people from getting sucked into a cycle of blood and vengeance, is to say there is a God who will put everything right. If you don’t believe in a God like that, you will pick up the sword. Volf writes that the only resource strong enough to help Croatians live in peace on earth is a belief in a God of judgment.

Hell is crucial for knowing the love of God.

Finally, the doctrine of hell is necessary for knowing the love of God. “Wait a minute,” you say. “This is the worst idea of all! The whole idea of a God of judgment seems opposed to the idea of a God of love.” But you’re wrong, with all due respect.

Look at the end of our passage. What does the rich man ask of Abraham? He asks for his five brothers. He says: I want a miracle. Send Lazarus back.

If Lazarus suddenly came up out of the ground in front of the five brothers, that would be a spectacular miracle. If Lazarus was resurrected, surely the five brothers would say, “It’s Lazarus! There is a hell! I better live a good life, because I don’t want to go to hell!” But Abraham tells the rich man that approach will never work. Fear of hell and damnation will never change the fundamental structures of a human heart. The fear of hell will never keep you out of it. It won’t put out the fire.

Again, what is the fire? What’s wrong with you and me? What’s wrong with the world? Self-centeredness. Self-absorption. Me, me, me, rather than you. That’s what’s wrong. So when you scare people–when people say, “I better be good because of fear of hell and damnation”–they won’t end up being good for goodness sake or for God’s sake, for his pleasure. They’re just going to be good for their own sake. It’s just more selfishness! It might be moral selfishness, but it’s still selfishness. Not only that, but they’re also going to use God, saying, “If I live a good enough life, God will have to give me the things that I’m basing my identity on. He will have to give me success, a family, the man or woman of my dreams, and heaven.” In other words, God will still be nothing more than a means to an end to get the things upon which they are building their identity. Thus getting moral, going to church, reading the Bible–all done out of fear of hell–will just turn up the flames. They will just rearrange the selfishness and the pride and the evil of their hearts.

If fear won’t change the fundamental structures of the heart, what will? Love. Radical, unconditional love is the only thing that will take our mistrustful, in-denial, conniving little hearts and shock them into a whole new way of living and being. And where are we going to get that kind of love that changes our heart? Jesus tells us indirectly in our text.

The rich man says, “If my brothers could just see a sign, then everything would be okay.” But as we’ve noted, Abraham says no to this approach. His refusal to do so is supposed to make you think of something. Didn’t Jesus rise from the dead? But is even that enough to believe? No! The key is to know why Jesus died–which is shown in the writings of Moses and the Prophets. It was God’s will to crush Jesus. As Isaiah points out, we looked upon Jesus, and we were appalled. He was disfigured beyond human appearance, and his form was marred beyond human likeness. The Lord made him a guilt offering, and by the results of his suffering, God is satisfied.

You do not know how much Jesus loves you unless you know how much he suffered. What did he suffer on the cross? I think of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ sermon illustration that has helped me for years. He said I should imagine that a friend comes to see me and says, “Hey, I was at your house the other day and a bill came due. You weren’t there, so I paid it.” How should I respond? The answer is I have no idea how to respond until I know how big the bill was. Was it just a postage charge? Twenty cents or so? If so, you would say, “Thank you.” But what if it was ten years of back taxes? What if it was an enormous debt? As Lloyd-Jones says, “Until I know how much he paid, I don’t know whether to shake his hand or fall down on the ground and kiss his feet.” This is why I believe that hell is crucial for knowing the love of God.

Many of us have along-awaited this day as we have struggled through years of confusion, heresy, broken relationships, and uncertainty about our place in the life of the Anglican Communion.  This week’s events shed light, hope and clarity upon these things.  There is renewed strength and unity among us as Anglicans from many different sub-divisions of His Church, long estranged from one another through different doctrines and styles of worship.  We now have renewed purpose and vision, as well as clarity about who we are and where we are going…together as a unified body of Anglicans in North America.

However, not everything is settled.  There are still divisions and wounds that must be healed and overcome.  The issue of women’s ordination is a thorn in the side of the ACNA that must be extracted in order for us to be fully effective in mission and witness.  The Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in the Americas presented a challenge to the ACNA this past week to turn back to the teaching of the Apostles and Church fathers on this issue and move forward in the understanding that we cannot conform to this world, but must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  In order for there to be true communion with the Orthodox Church, certain doctrines of the ACNA, including that of women’s ordination, must be retooled.  Although the issue of women’s ordination is not a creedal issue for Anglicans; it is nevertheless an issue that evokes strong feelings and produces huge roadblocks to collegial ministry in the Anglican Church and the ecumenical community of Christians worldwide.

The specific relationships between congregations, their bishops, the Common Cause partners and the ACNA must also be sorted out.  The current model is complicated and looks more like a conglomeration of loosely connected congregational churches rather than an historic apostolic and catholic model which has been our tradition for centuries.  In my mind, this issue, more than any other, will determine the amount of fruit that the Anglican Church in North America will be able to produce and whether some congregations will even survive in this new era of Anglicanism.  The current model breeds confusion, mistrust and lack of accountability between congregations, the Common Cause partners and the wider Anglican Communion.  Currently, the individual parish bylaws of Christ the Redeemer have more authority and power than the bylaws of CANA, the ACNA or the Church of Nigeria, to which all we are theoretically subject.

And yet, despite the issues remaining to be sorted through, we have much over which to rejoice.  As St. Paul writes in the fifth chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians,  “the old has passed away, behold, the new has come…”  A new era has indeed begun which will prayerfully produce a harvest of ripe fruit to be reaped by the member churches of the ACNA.  We must then, look to the future and to the “fields which are white unto harvest.”  Archbishop Duncan issued a challenge for the ACNA to plant 1,000 churches in the next 5 years.  By God’s grace, this will be accomplished.  Yet not without a strong commitment by each of us to “forget what lies behind, and press on to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  The Cross is calling to us.  Will we respond unreservedly and selflessly, choosing sacrifice over selfishness?  Will be enter into the fray of battle and endeavor to fight the good fight of the faith and seek to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus himself to “Go and Make Disciples of All Nations…?”  For the sake of Christ’s kingdom, I pray you will choose this day to serve the Lord and not the flesh…that you will choose life!

Below, you will find a PowerPoint presentation, which accompanied by the sermon I gave this past Sunday at Christ the Redeemer, will assist you in personally sorting through the new model that is being formed by the ACNA.  I encourage you also to go to the website for the ACNA, so that you may review the constitution, video footage of the Assembly and other newsworthy documents.

May God help us all as we seek to be faithful witness to Jesus Christ our Lord!

As you may know, this Monday begins a new era in Anglicanism in North America.  After a long journey through heresy and schism, the true Anglican Church in North America will be born. The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) will have its first assembly to ratify its Constitution & Canons and to enthrone its new Archbishop.  Everyone is invited to the worship service where that enthronement will take place and thus I have canceled all activities at Christ the Redeemer next Wednesday night so that all faithful North Texas Anglicans might gather together at Christ Church Plano for this momentous and historic occasion.

A new website has been formed to introduce the ACNA and  provide information about the Assembly and answer any questions that people may have.  A video has also been produced that gives a brief sketch of what hopes to be accomplished at the Assembly.  I was honored to have a brief part in that video and share my views on what the ACNA might bring forth.  The ACNA website also has an overview of the new Constitution and Canons as well as a full schedule of next week’s events.

The URL address for the website is http://www.acnaassembly.org.

The URL address for the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmVwAoZmAWw&fmt=18.

I hope you will be able to join me in celebrating the dawn of a new era in Anglicanism at Christ Church Plano next Wednesday night at 7:30pm.  I would strongly advise anyone planning to attend to arrive no later than 7:00pm if you want a seat (6:30pm would be safer).  Please be in prayer for the Archbishop-elect, the delegates and all who will be a part of shaping the new face of North American Anglicanism.

Yours in His Service,

Lawrence+

1. Start with praise & worship. God is holy. Give thanks and praise to your heavenly Father and acknowledge that He is worthy of praise.
2. Be aware that Jesus is coming back again. Watch and pray for his return and pray His kingdom is established on this earth…and that His gospel reaches all nations.
3. Surrender your life and agendas to God and pray that His will is done in your life. To accomplish His will you must know His will. Spend some time listening and asking God how you might accomplish His will.
4. God wants us to ask for our daily needs. Take a moment to think about today’s needs. Be specific and honest in asking for your daily bread. Focus on today – do not worry about tomorrow.
5. Ask God’s forgiveness for your sins. Be willing to repent (turn away from them in the future) and make amends to those you have offended.
6. Ask God to show you if you need to forgive anyone who has offended you…even long ago. Forgiveness is a process.
7. Pray for God to lead you away from any situations or persons that would tempt you to sin. Pray for Him to keep you safe from the Devil and all demons.
8. Ask God for more of His Holy Spirit so that you may 1) walk in the Spirit, 2) pray in the Spirit and 3) be filled with the Spirit.

I wanted to write some of my friends from church and let them know of a powerful thing that happened to me at Church yesterday.   I wanted to write several of the people I know from Christ the Redeemer, and several that have left too, as I think the message here transcends any earthly barriers.   This is one of those “Filled with Joy” moments that I just wanted to share with everyone.

I’ve been thinking of late about some of the overall larger issues our church has, and I was focusing on some of the negative aspects of all of this.  Due to this, I was feeling rather “blah” about going to church this past Sunday (Jun 1).  So I had internally decided on Saturday that I was not going to go to church.  No particular reason, other than “I didn’t want to”.  I’ve skipped a few times in the last few years, but there’s usually a reason (airport trip, or needing a family day or something tangible like being sick).  This one was nothing other than my own “funk”, and my desire to be by myself and “do my own thing”, I suppose.  Lynn was at work at the time I had decided this, so I didn’t tell her about this decision yet.  As Lynn was at work, it was “Daddy & Samantha day!”.  We were driving around and Samantha remembered we went to Sam’s Club about a month ago, and she played on the demo version of a video game called “Rock Band“.   She wanted to do so again, as she liked the drums.  For those that don’t know, “Rock Band” is a game where you have a microphone, a drum kit, and a guitar, and you play along with pre-recorded songs.  So we went to Sam’s Club to let her bang on the drums for a few minutes, but the demo kit had been removed, and she was bummed out about it.  This is important again later.

When Samantha and I got back home from the trip, I had gotten an email from Spencer Williams.  Spencer had asked me to bring my camera with me on Sunday, as it was Commencement Sunday for the discipleship class.  He asked if I’d get a picture of the group.  So I thought “OK, I’ll go – I seem to be Mr. Camera guy anyway”.  I was just going to go for that, because I do enjoy taking pictures, plus there’s been several events captured which if I didn’t, there’d be no visual record of.  So yeah, I was going just to take pictures, I still kind of didn’t want to be there, really.

Well, let me tell you, this is a prime example of “Obedience Brings Blessing”.  I came, and I felt like it was going to be a day you get once in awhile, where you’re just there to “go through the motions”.  As most of you know, I’ve had a few injuries in my knee since last August.  I fell and really banged up my knee last August originally, and it hurt a lot for quite awhile.  It was getting better, and then I twisted my ankle playing in the back yard with Samantha, and most recently I fell on some water on our hardwood floor in the kitchen I did not properly clean up.   So I’ve had some sort of pain in my left knee since last August.  When we got to the part in the service where we kneel for confession, I was thinking “What do I confess now? – So I told the Lord, “Look, you know me, you know all the stuff I’ve done, and right now, as I kneel here – I can’t think of a single thing to confess, and I know I’ve done a ton that needs to be confessed, so Lord, I’m sorry that I cannot remember what I’ve done wrong for you”.  I was feeling pretty down about not being able to remember my own sins.  There’s enough of them, I should be able to remember, but I really felt different about this confession, normally I can pass it off to something or another, but this one felt different.  Then we got into the community confession part.  At the end of it, when Fr L delivers the blessing, I had a rather huge smile, and an overwhelming feeling of happiness.  Normally, I feel good about confession, but this was something different.  It felt way stronger than usual, and then I realized I was kneeling down on the kneeler, without any pain.  That was something I had not done since, well, since we first got them.  So I was rather filled with joy about receiving God’s blessing, and being pain free at the same time.  So I had to offer up thanks for it during prayers from the people (which you may have heard me say during the service).  But it didn’t stop there.

During Father Lawrence’s children’s sermon, I took a bunch of pictures.  As I try and take pictures with the flash off as to not disturb the service, I tend to take a lot of them because 90% of them are unusable and blurry due to no flash.  Well, one of them worked out, and had quite a meaning for me.  It was from the second attempt to get the Jesus paper to rise with the balloon.  Right before the balloon got to the ceiling, the picture I took had a completely UNMISTAKABLE cross on it.  Now the light behind the balloon was not shaped like that, and we don’t have any cross shaped lights that I know of in the church.   The closest would be the big wooden cross behind the altar, but there’s no way I can think of that this cross would reflect on the balloon like this.  I can only conclude that this was a message from God that I was supposed to be there today.  Both to receive the absolution from sin, to feel pain free – this cross on the balloon was a message for me, I think.  I did not see this cross until later in the afternoon on Sunday when I had dumped the pictures from my camera to my computer.  It was quite powerful – I just stared at it for awhile.  I’m not the kind of person who sees these things – I don’t see “Jesus in a pancake”, or “The Virgin Mary in tree bark”.  So for me to see a cross in an object like that was quite powerful to me.  Since God knows I’m a computer person, and someone who takes a lot of pictures, it felt like he was using this technology to reach out to me, and deliver me a message that he was glad I was there when I didn’t want to be.

So I get to work today, trying to figure out how to tell people about all this, and in my company’s interoffice email was a guy here who was selling his copy of the aforementioned “Rock Band” game from earlier in my story.  He was selling it for about 33% off, and I wrote him back saying “It’s tempting man, as my little girl wanted to go bang on the demo unit at Sam’s Club Saturday, but it wasn’t there – I almost bought one on the spot – but I really don’t have the free cash to buy a $150 game, even discounted to $100, but thanks for the offer”.  About ten minutes later, the guy shows up in my office, carrying the Rock Band game stuff.  I said “Dude, my email was to say I was tempted, I really can’t afford to buy this, as much as I’d like to”.   He responded with “I know.  The joy of your little girl is a better thing to receive than the money I’d get.”  I protested again with something like “That’s nice dude, but you could get some money for this”.  He told me “Shut up, and take it home would ya?”  So I backed off and accepted it.  It was a very kind gift, and right after it happened, I could only thank the Lord for being in this man’s heart.  When I replied to him about Samantha, I honestly was not intending to seek out a gift like that.  The Lord must have been working in his heart.   I feel it’s a nice bookend to the last 36 hours or so with me.  I was obedient to God’s call to come to him and come to his house, so I was blessed both spiritually, and with an Earthly blessing, too.

I have to admit to still being a bit surprised by all this.  Spencer, thanks for the email, my friend – or I would have likely missed all of this.

As you receive this newsletter, we will be celebrating our nine month anniversary as a newly transplanted congregation in South Garland.  How ironic that nine months is the gestation period for a baby as it seems that it what God has been doing with us over the past nine months: preparing us for new birth as a congregation as we also celebrate this month the birth of our Savior.

Reflecting back on the past nine months, it is hard to fight back the tears of joy as I recall the many ways God has shown to us His goodness and faithfulness.  In less than a week, we renovated and established a new worship space; we purchased six acres of land in Rowlett for a future campus, complete with the Canterbury House; we found a new spiritual home in CANA, we regularly received the necessary resources to continue in faithful ministry; we saw steady growth, necessitating the expansion of our Broadway campus; and we have seen many people come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and receive his healing touch.  Amazing things have happened as we have sought to be a church family faithful to the Bible and the teaching of the Apostles as we have received it.  And now, as our nine-month gestation period comes to an end, we see God beginning to open up new vistas of ministry and opportunities for us as a congregation.

In January, we will embark on The Promised Land Capital Campaign which will give us the resources to press forward with our Master Plan and pay off the debt on the land we have purchased in Rowlett.  The kickoff for this Campaign will be the same day as our first Confirmation service since we joined CANA and a visit from our new CANA bishop, David Anderson.  January will also mark the celebration of new ministry for Sheri Graham as she is ordained a deacon and begins a new season of ministry among us as a member of the clergy.  In March, we will celebrate our one year anniversary as a congregation by sponsoring the Anglican School of Healing Ministries at our Broadway campus, hosting Anglicans and other Christians from all over the country as we seek to fulfill our call to equip disciples and spread the Good News of God’s healing touch.  Next summer we will lead several mission trips and I will hopefully host a group of CANA ordination aspirants on a trip to Nigeria.

Just as the Apostle Peter wrote to the early disciples, we have indeed been “born anew through the living and abiding word of God.”  I am so thankful for each one of you who has remained faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ and has given so generously of your time, talent and treasure for the building of God’s Kingdom and the “equipping of the saints for ministry” here at Christ the Redeemer.  It is an exciting time in the life of our congregation and there is a place for each of us to continue to be faithful ministers of the gospel using the gifts that He has given to us according to His grace.

I pray that for you and your family, this Advent and Christmas season will be filled with a joy-filled peace and a sense of expectancy in what God has planned for each of us in the months and years ahead.

Joyfully Yours in His Love and Grace,

Fr Lawrence+