Spilling Hope – Live, Give, Change

by Nancy Eckardt

I am a thrift-store junkie.  It is my vice, my escape, in many ways.  I have found amazing bargains on my trips to Goodwill and Value Village, but I have also purchased things just because they are a great deal, not because I actually need them.  So my commitment over these 50 days of the Spilling Hope campaign is to give up purchasing items for myself at any thrift store for 50 days, and giving those funds to build wells in Uganda.  So far, so good, although I have justified the purchase of some books for the church library, and an iHome clock radio (with remote!!) for my son, Cameron. 

 It has actually been more challenging than I thought it would be.  I have not stayed out of the thrift stores, and when I am there, part of me cries out to buy that pair of shoes that looks like they haven’t been worn, and are made by a high-end company.  How can I walk away from these bargains, because they won’t be there when I return in 50 days? 

 When I return in 50 days?  When Pentecost comes on May 23rd, and I bring my gift in for Spilling Hope, will I then feel free to return to my same old ways of spending more than I need to, buying stuff that I can certainly live without?  Is the goal of the campaign to save and give for 50 days so that I can send a big fat check to Living Waters International, or is there more to it than that?

 Yes, there’s more to it than that!  There is a third word in the core values of Spilling Hope that reflect God’s best intentions for our lives – Change.  The hope and ultimate goal of any campaign of generosity we take on is to be transformed in our attitudes and habits, so that we become lifelong recipients and agents of God’s blessing and generosity.  That is a much more significant challenge!  It’s a marathon, not a sprint! My prayer for myself during these 50 days is that I begin a process of letting go of my need to find the perfect bargain, and to live in gratefulness and contentment for what I already have. 

 What about you?  Are you anxious for the 50 days to be over, so you can return to your previous habits and attitudes about our resources?  Or are you wondering if you can make your commitment of 50 days a habit for life, and begin to look at generosity as a way of life, a reflection of the blessing that you have received in Christ?

 We are offering a class on Generosity, Wednesday, May 12 – June 2, 6:45 – 8pm, in Classroom A.  In the class we will look at Generosity broadly.  Why is generosity a worthy discipline in our Rule of Life here at Bethany?  What do we base our commitment to generosity on?  What do we believe about ourselves and our resources that make it difficult to be generous?  We will address specific areas, including our finances, our time, and our spirit.  The format will be lecture with interactive discussion around tables.  Teachers include Geoff Dargan and Heather Tuininga.  If you are looking for a place to explore the spiritual discipline of generosity on a deeper level, this is the class for you.

Welcome to Eastertide, and Another Fresh Start

By Nancy Eckardt (nancye@churchbcc.org)

Easter at Bethany was a spectacular celebration of our risen Savior.  I hope you were able to be here to take in the flowers and the smiles of volunteers, the music and the message, and the expectant spirit that permeated the day.  Even if you were unable to attend, I trust your Easter was a time of celebrating the resurrection of Christ, and his ongoing infusion of life into our lives and the world.   Eastertide, the 50 days following Easter, is a chance for us to remember the life that Christ authored for us, through his death and resurrection, and to commit again to allowing his life to flow through us.

At the beginning of Lent, many of you committed to establishing a Rule of Life, a specific set of measurable intentions in the areas of Scripture Reading, Prayer, Generosity, and Service.  Lent was a great time to try this out and see how God worked as you followed through with the commitment you made.  So how did it go?  For me personally, I set intentions in the areas of Scripture, Prayer, and Service, but am still considering what Generosity looks like for me.  I am also looking for an accountability partner. 

Maybe for you, it’s time for a fresh start.  The purpose of establishing a Rule of Life is not so that we can have one more thing to feel bad about not getting done.  In fact it is a way for us to acknowledge that we are on a path with Christ, and that the spiritual disciplines that we incorporate into our lives are worth the effort, even if we have to try over and over again.  On Sunday, Richard challenged each of us to give authorship of our lives back to God, and the development of a rule of life is the way for us to take a step in that direction.

 Starting on Sunday, April 18th, we will be offering another Rule of Life class, 9:30 – 10:45am, in Classroom B.  For 5 weeks we will look more closely at what it means to have a Rule of Life, why it is important, what it has looked like for others, and what it can look like for us.  Taught by Kevin Hilman and Suzanne Townsend, it will be a great shot in the arm for those of you who are serious about incorporating spiritual disciplines into your life.

Another resource for you is this website.  We hope to update this site weekly with articles, links, book reviews and other resources that will help you as you develop your Rule of Life.  We also encourage you to click on the My Rule of Life tab, and share your intentions with the rest of us.

If you have questions or comments, you can submit them at the end of the home page.  It is my hope that this will be a virtual place of support and encouragement as we commit together to till the soil of our hearts so that God’s transforming work can be done in and through us.  Please join us!

Blessings,
Nancy Eckardt

Our Prayers: Thermometer of our world view…

by Pastor Richard Dahlstrom (raincitypastor)

I recently read a survey that indicated 90% of American men self identify as being “above average fitness” compared to their peers.  When you do the math (and even I can do this math) it becomes these men don’t have self image problems; but they are delusional.  Their problem comes, I suspect, from one of the oldest tricks in the book: confusing intention with action.  They want to exercise, want to eat right, want get enough sleep, want to cut back on coffee and alcohol.  They watch bow-flex commercials, drink low carb beer, and declare themselves ‘fitter than average’.  Intent gets confused with action.   What’s actually needed are objective measures of health; things like body mass index, resting heart rate, and the good/bad cholesterol ratio.   The harsh numbers tell the truth.

There’s a similar objective assessment, in my opinion at least, in matters of spiritual health.  Many of us say that we live in a world where God is able to intervene in history, and does intervene in history.  He changes hearts, heals bodies, brings the triumph of the cross to bear in lives that are wracked with self-loathing and guilt, sets people free.  We say God does these things, and many of us even go a step further and say that, while God is able to do whatever he wants, he sometimes partners with us mere humans, “waiting” as it were, for us to get involved in God’s activities by our doing one simple thing:  asking.

We who believe this can offer a boatload of evidence that this is true:  God steps into history to deliver Israel from slavery because he ‘hears their cry’. Hannah prayed for a son and God gave her one.  Elijah prayed for an offering to be consumed and it was.  Jesus told us that we have not because we ask not.  Later he said that ‘this kind’ (speaking of a certain demonic possession) can only come out by prayer and fasting.   It’s all through the Bible - God steps into history in response to prayers.   We believe it – or at least we say we do.

But saying we do is like watching bowflex commercials while eating popcorn and drinking low-carb beer. The real thermometer of our belief that God steps into history actively is our prayer life.  I was reminded of this recently when some people at our church asked pastoral staff to come over to their house and pray through it because they were sensing ‘dark spirits.’  We don’t get these requests often (all right, never until now) but a team went and prayed.  The family said that the effects were both immediate and dramatic.

Dramatic encounters with the forces of darkness are, in my opinion, easier that dealing with the day to day subtleties of life, because there’s so much noise telling us that we live in a purely material world, and because we’ve so many medical, and financial, and therapeutic tools at our disposal that we come to believe, practically speaking, that we can “do it on our own” in spite of what we say we believe.  I mean, with a good marketing guy, a killer web site, and good sound and lights you can build a church.. right?  Sadly… right.

Our prayer life, asking specific things of God, is a good indicator of the degree to which we believe God is at work in the world.  We’re saturated in a materialistic culture that says, both overtly and covertly, that God isn’t active, that things just happen.  We push back, maybe even pointing to the very verses I’ve quoted above.

Big deal.  The real issue is this:  Am I asking God to step into my world, or the world of another, to bring healing, faith, hope, provision, direction?  Do I believe it when Jesus says, “apart from me you can do nothing?”  Does the amount of my praying correlate to the amount of my talking about how great God is, how involved he is in history?

The house demons are gone, and I’m reminded through the event that, behind the veil of our material world, there’s a God able to intervene, and forces of darkness intent on destroying hope and life.  We’ve a calling here folks, to be people of prayer.  I’ve taken to writing my daily prayers in a journal, just like I do with exercise, so that I can look back and see if I’m being consistent.  When there’s a gap of 13 days in the journal, I realize that I talk a good game, but have a long way to go in living what I say I believe.  How about you?

How to Develop a Sustainable Faith, or Rule of Life 101

Sunday, February 21, was a significant day at Bethany, and not just because we enjoyed the play of sun off the wall at the front of the Sanctuary, and then were able to visit with one another outside between services.  Sunday was significant because that is the day that many of us committed in our hearts to develop a Rule of Life for the next three months; 658 of us declared that intention by putting our card of commitment in one of the pots at the front of the Sanctuary and the Chapel.

If you missed the message, I encourage you to listen to it online and be sure to pick up a Rule of Life Booklet next Sunday at the information desk.  In the booklet, you will find articles about the four disciplines that we at Bethany will be focusing on over the next year:  prayer, Scripture reading, generosity, and service.  There are a variety of resources listed throughout the booklet, as well as a form at the back where you can write down your intentions.

Want to get connected with others in the Bethany community who are practicing Rule of Life? Come to Rule of Life 101, a new class that meets Wednesday evenings from 6:45-8pm in Classroom A. This five-week class includes an introductory session, followed by sessions taught on each of the four Rule of Life disciplines we’re exploring at Bethany this year. The current class ends March 24, and there is another Rule of Life 101 class beginning Sunday, April 18. This class will be Sunday mornings from 9:30-10:30am in Classroom B, from April 18 through May 16.