Goin' Mercer…ramblings and rants!

Short and simple: Everyone!

When we begin to decide who is in and who is out we have already lost the point of community. It is not our decision to make, its God’s. God calls his children to believe, they listen and learn how to respond, they respond through believing in His name, and then God brings them into his body or community through baptism.

Look around your churches! We are a mix of people racially, economically, socially, and spiritually. God calls all and those that respond enter into the community of faith. Look around your churches again! We are all the same in Jesus Christ. It is the same Lord, Faith, and Baptism. It is the same Spirit that lives inside us. We are one!

It does not matter whether someone fully incorporates themselves into the life of the church or retreats to the back pew and hastens to the door after Amen. They are all involved in the community and each needs to be reached and appreciated.

We are not called to decide who should be a part of our community, we are called to engage the community in which we are involved. We don’t get to decide who, but how to respond to the “who” that was called.

This means that as people of community we must talk to those we would rather walk on by and listen to those who talk too much. We must sincerely hear the concerns of the downtrodden and appreciate the overtly optimistic. We must leap past our personal bounds of introversion and risk social suicide. We must simply (in word, but not in action) be Jesus to our fellow worshippers.

There are three others intimately involved in the community. That’s right, God the Father, Jesus the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! They have set the perfect example of unity and community and yet are experiencing community with us as Christians. If we embrace the Trinity then we must embrace one another with love and care. If we delve into community with one another, yet forfeit community with the Trinity we have experienced worldly community and have let the spiritual blessing pass us by.

Those belonging to Christian Community are Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Church, and You!

Don’t miss an opportunity to fully embrace and fellowship with your Christian Community where you are!

-Michael

I love church and Sunday worship! I think it is something of a gift from God to us to enjoy. We enjoy healing and encouragement with other Saints and Sinners. Church does more than we could ask or imagine. It does so through the Holy Spirit. Church is the place that Christian community is born, grows, and eternalizes.

Unfortunately we see church as something that happens at the buildings we come together at on Sundays rather than the daily dwelling of the body of Christ. So we leave the building on Sunday and take off our plastered smiles and quick-glided handshakes and sink into the pit of reality that awaits us the other six days of the week. We could be such a stronger force of faith, grace, social justice, and healing for the heartbroken if we used the realities we lived in for God’s glory rather than hiding behind our Sunday facade. This is an unfortunate understanding of community. If I have been tired, lonely, sinful, weak, or burdened Monday through Saturday, why come to church and act joyful, put-together, robust, and free? If we came real on Sunday we may be healed of our Monday through Saturday woes.

We cannot keep community at our buildings. We must be interacting with one another daily. We must bring our “real” selves to our worship assemblies. We must lay everything down so that God works in us!

The other side of this is to pretend we are in community with people at our churches outside the building when we haven’t taken the time to truly know them. This is where judgments are quickly made as I talked about yesterday. People read something in a bulletin about someone or see something in the paper or hear from a friend and they assume they know who they are as a person. We forego the formality of meeting someone and having a conversation with a person and begin to instruct them on how to live their life, what God will do for them, or worse that we have the experience of life to know what is right. These things may not be evil in themselves but when mixed with a low sense of community drive people from our churches and fellowship.

So how do we practice true community in our churches? How do we right the wrongs of jugmental attitudes and hypocrisy? How can we truly know others? Who is involved in Christian Community? How can we be real without forging new emotional and spiritual scars? These are questions I would like for us to ponder and as I write on them in the future, have you comment as well. The ultimate answer comes back to the cross of Christ, the Father who is Love, and the Holy Spirit that won’t let us divide. Join me as we explore these ideas and more in the following few weeks.

If any of the descriptions above hit you in the heart as they have me do this: Pray, apologize, and seek the Lord first in everything!

-Michael

This past weekend on Friday and Saturday I went to my hometown of Bay City, TX to attend my 10 year high school reunion. I won’t say that it was a blast, because that would be overstating it a bit and anyone who reads this and has gone to their reunion would know I was lying. However, it was good to see some old friends. Some of these friends I had forgotten about. I was reluctant somewhat to go, because there were friends I wanted to see that I assumed just wouldn’t come. I am glad I went, though, because they did come.

We mostly look the same with a few extra pounds or with a few children. It was good to hear what everyone was doing now and enjoying the good weather at the park.

It really showed me that community is important. We went to school together for at least four years, some seven years, even still some all K-12. In that time we formed a community.

I guess that is what I like about church. We are a community. With community comes good and bad though. The good is how people work together for God’s glory. The bad is when people become selfish and only see community through themselves. It is our job as Christians to unite together and not assume we are the everything. We aren’t, but God is.

We have community not so we can judge people, bring disunity, find faults, gossip, or instill ill will towards others. No, that is what the world does with community. As Christians we have community for one purpose and it doesn’t even revolve around us. We come together for the purpose of glorifying God. When we do this properly we come together united under the banner of Christ, linked by the Spirit to serve others and ultimately bring glory to Christ!

Community doesn’t just happen at church. It is every day!

Tomorrow I will speak more of what community and Christianity looks like on a daily basis.

-Michael

I would imagine that if you are in Houston and have a blog or have been an avid fan of the Houston Astros and have a blog that it will be hard to not write about the Astros today. After battling it out all season and two playoff upset series, they have reached the promised land of baseball. Does it really matter what happens next? They made it and that is all that counts…for now! Give us Houstonians a few days to come off our winning high and we will be starving for more victories from our beloved team. Everybody has to root for at least one team that you know will win. I like history and like idealism, therefore my winning team of choice has been the Yankees. However, with the Astros, a team I have rooted for since I could make noise, in the world series that New York team has escaped my memory. I am excited about the possibility of a world series win, but I can’t help but join Craig Biggio in his statement after the game, “I’m not greedy, I just want to go to one!” Oh, how true. So, I take a break from youth ministry talk, spiritual musings, and family boastings, to give a cheer for my ’stros who have reignited Houstonians love for baseball all over again.

The team to the right will be the ones on the field these last 4-7 games to win it all, however, it is the legacy that precedes them that has helped capture the heart of the city, the respect of the league, and the anticipation of greatness!

So, let there be honor to the past players:
Alan Ashby
Jose Cruz
Larry Dierker
Billy Doran
Ken Caminiti
Mike Scott
Glen Davis
Kevin Bass
Billy Hatcher
Nolan Ryan
Craig Reynolds
Terry Puhl
Steve Finley
Luis Gonzalez
Daryl Kile
Jim Deshaies
Pete Harnisch

Just to name a few. Have any others? Add them under comments.

I am in Abilene this weekend taking the last weekend of my graduate course in Family Ministry. I came up early this time so that I wouldn’t be driving 6 hours then be in class for 8 hours. So, I came up Wednesday. That was a blessing because I was able to get four papers done that afternoon and evening. I went to bed peacefully and the air conditioner on high. I woke and got ready. I put on shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. I opened the door and all of the sudden a great gust of wind, cold wind hit my bare legs, arms, and face. I shut the door quickly and tried to figure out what exactly this was. Then it dawned on me. I am a place that has at least two seasons, hot and cold. It was the cold I was feeling. Houston has two seasons as well; hot and humid. Luckily I brought a pair of pants. I changed quickly and then preceded to my truck. Again I was blessed to find that I had a rain jacket/windbreaker in my truck left over from evacuating from Rita. I put it on and for the first time in over 8 months I put my heater on in my truck. I have a routine up here right now. Leave inside, get in truck, get to destination, get inside. It seems to be working so far. I like the cold, but I usually enjoy being prepared for it.

The class is going great we are mixing two ideas. One idea is how to do ministry to families within our church context and community context. The other idea is what to do with Christian education in our churches. I have to admit the later is much more difficult to resolve than the first. I have learned some very valuable things here, not only about these two issues but others as well. The difficult part of graduate school is taking what you learn and helping those that weren’t able to come to get behind the vision. I think it would be great one day for one of our members, whether that be elder, deacon, minister, staff, or member to go with me to one of these classes. It is pretty cheap to audit and one who audits doesn’t have to take the exams or write the papers, they just sit and soak up the knowledge. Any takers?

I will be heading home tomorrow. Hopefully by then the weather will be less wet and windy, making my trip safe. Class is about to begin so I must sign off for now!

-Michael

During our evacuation along I-10 Leah and I began to brainstorm about different possibilities. Ft. Worth was not looking promising, San Antonio was looking better. I have a good friend, well he’s my best friend and was the best man in my wedding and he lives in San Antonio. I called him. He was very willing to set us up for a few nights. Not only that, but he was even more willing to come and meet us and bring us gas. I turned him down for the most part. Then as we were traveling to Austin we began to lose faith that gas would be there. I called Jacob. He got up at the moment, got his wife and his little girl and headed to the pumps. God blessed us right outside of Austin with an open station that had gas. I called Jacob to alert him of the good news. At that point he was on his way to Austin from San Antonio and had 22 gallons of gas in 12 different containers. He was still willing to meet us in Austin and give us gas or turn around and go home. To save him the trip I told him we were good on gas and he went back home.

Friends that dedicated and loving don’t come around every day. God was giving us an extra abundance of faith along this trip. He was also teaching us about blessings. We had blessings of gas, safety, and we saw the blessings we had in friends and family. Jacob is an awesome man of God. He works hard in public education in a school that many teachers refuse to work. He brings Christ into those students’ lives every day. His wife is just as amazing. She too is a school teacher, only is at this moment taking on the arduous task of raising their daughter and staying home. She has a deep faith and reliance upon God. This family has been such a light to me and Leah. We love them very much and they love us. God’s blessing of friends is overwhelming in desperate situations and in times of abundant joy.

Praise be to God for friends and especially my friend Jacob and his family!

-Michael