Jon Roberts Page 100

By Doug Inglish–Denver, Colorado … There is a saying in auto racing: In the blink of an eye you can go from a driver to a passenger.

That’s kind of a scary concept when you are in a vehicle that only has room for one! In one instant, you are controlling a technologically-advanced machine at over 200 mph, the car responding perfectly to every command. The next, you are strapped into a pile of scrap metal at a somewhat slower but still breathtaking speed, unable to stop, steer or otherwise influence where this hot mess is going to end up as it sprays sparks and combustible fuel over the hot pavement.

We have all felt that way, haven’t we? Hopefully without the physical danger. It happens in relationships, in personal finances, at work, practically in every part of our lives. One minute you are in control and the next, you don’t seem to have any influence over the course of things. It’s too late to be proactive, and being reactive doesn’t seem to change anything.

Usually, however, even when things go amiss, we have more control over the situation than the sudden passenger on the track at Indianapolis. That holds true even when a pandemic turns the world upside down.

You may have had your work severely impacted. You may have no choice over sending the kids to school, where to eat, or whom you can visit. And even if they let you go to certain stores, you might not find what you want, or be forced to take a brand you don’t like. One day you are driving your life, and the next day, you feel like you’re just along for the ride, headed toward the wall with no way to turn the wheels.

But look at all the choices we can still make. I would not choose to work mostly from home, staggering my office time with others in my department to minimize physical proximity. But with emails, cell phones, and Zoom meetings, we are able to go forward with less interruption than a similar office just twenty years ago.

I can have my favorite foods, even if not in my favorite restaurant. The shelves of my fridge and cupboard have plenty for Susan and I, and free delivery is available from a wide variety of places.

I talk to my son in Wisconsin, my daughter in Tennessee, and my father in Indiana, all by video, if I want. I may not see them in person for a while, but contact is so easy that we forget how recently it was that a long-distance call required us to consider if it was worth the relatively high cost.

And I do church at home. It’s far from ideal, but I still have that option and I can choose from an almost unlimited menu of preachers, from my local pastor to the well-known evangelists to the greatest hits of Adventist sermons from the past.

Even though schools may be closed, teachers are creatively working to keep our students on task and on track to finish their lessons by the end of the year.

So even in the midst of limited options, we still have a degree of control that is provided by technology, creativity, and our own will to carry on.

Let me point out one more choice you can make. It’s a very important one. Even if you feel more like a passenger than a driver at this time, you still have this option.

You can choose to keep supporting the mission.

That’s more important than what brand of sanitizing wipes you get, or where you get your take-out, or whether you choose this week’s sermon or a golden oldie from a favorite camp meeting. That choice has not been taken from you.

We are all experiencing, to one degree or another, a loss of control over many of the circumstances of our lives. Many are feeling the pinch brought on by this crisis, and many more will before it is over; that much is out of our control. There is no question that as the financial crunch comes to more families, it will impact The Rocky Mountain Conference. Believe me, we talk about that, just as your employer and your family and the school your kids attend talk about it.

But we members are not helpless. We are not totally out of control. We have the ability to make decisions of significant importance to our own lives and to the mission that Jesus gave to us. We can all choose that as long as we have an income, we will return to the Lord His portion. Faithfulness is always an option.

Doug Inglish, RMC Planned Giving and Trust Services director; photo by Rajmund Dabrowski

An Open Letter to Pastors 

An appeal to keep your pajamas on and rethink church

Last weekend I watched so many of you move quickly to a virtual church format. The speed and efficiency with which you were able to pull things together was impressive. Some of you even had to quickly learn new technologies to overcome some hi-tech hurdles in order to pull off a live worship service.

After watching numerous services (I am an admitted church junkie), I couldn’t help feeling that something was missing. Something huge was missing from the worship experiences.

We are facing an unprecedented time where all of the rules are being tossed out, and we must now adjust to a new reality.

While we were lying on our couches, watching you on the internet in our pajamas, you were standing in a vacant church, behind a pulpit, preaching in your Sunday best.

Sadly, to many it probably felt inauthentic. We are not looking for the same worship experience, because we are not living in the same world from two weeks ago.

If you want to be effective, your sermon and worship services must adapt to the times in which we are living. Preaching to an empty church full of pews appears cold and disingenuous.

Last week, while I was watching a sermon, my eleven-year-old daughter came downstairs drowning in one of my blazers. She had an oversized Bible in her hand. When I questioned what she was doing, she laughed and said, “I am practicing a sermon that I am planning for my friends.” That is when it hit me. It appears like Pastors are “playing” church, instead of adapting to how church is currently evolving.

Here are four suggestions I want to propose as you think about crafting the church service over the coming months.

Make virtual home visits. Yesterday I received a phone call from our family pastor. She was calling to check on us and see how we are coping with the pandemic. This phone call was a virtual pastoral visit. * The church is about relationships. Many of your members may have lost their jobs; they are running out of money; they are experiencing overwhelming stress with the kids at home. Most pastors have an average of 30 families in their congregation. How hard would it be to schedule some visits? Please call your church members and pray for them over the phone. **

Lose the tie and pulpit. Last week, my friend Rick, invited his church members to join him via zoom. Even though I am not a member, I joined in to watch his sermon. Pastor Johns discarded his previously planned sermon and preached a new message about lessons he has learned during this pandemic. He spoke casually–no tie, no church podium. He spoke from his home, just like the rest of his members. *** We are living in drastic times. You don’t need to pull together a full worship service. Don’t make your members voyeurs—plan for us to participate with you.

Employ your volunteers. Last Friday, I attempted to call a friend on the phone. He said, “I can’t talk,” I am preparing for the youth Sabbath School lesson.” He explained that they were going to have an online bible study using zoom technology. Later I learned that every one of the Bible classes, from toddler to adults, had virtual class meetings led by volunteers. ****

Provide resources to the community. My wife volunteers with a food distribution group in our community. This initiative is a grassroots program, led by a local teacher. Guess what they need this week? Six-foot-long tables. They need about eight of them to disperse throughout the city. Guess who has all of the tables stored in their churches? This is the time to live out the mission of the church.

Finally, I want to thank you for stepping up and adapting so quickly. We are not going back to normal any time soon, so please become a modern missionary and involve your members to contextualize the gospel during these changing times.

—Kumar Dixit is a former pastor and current know-it-all. [This article was published on his Facebook page, April 3, 2020]

Notes:

*Pastor Marilyn Scott is our family pastor at New Hope Church. Check out what they are doing for kids and families. newhopefulton.org/children.

**I love how Cesar Gonzalez is offering daily prayer for anyone who wants to join him via Facebook Live.

***Click below to read about Rick L Johns experience in his own words and what he did to improve his zoom sermons. http://www.nadministerial.com/stories/2020/4/1/sermon-delivery-on-zoom-make-it-interesting?utm_source=Best+Practices+for+Adventist+Worship%2C+April+2%2C+2020&utm_campaign=BP+April+2&utm_medium=email

**** The Southern Asian Church https://www.facebook.com/SASDAC.Church/ is involving their volunteers better than anyone I know.

Growing up at the southwest tip of Lake Michigan, just about a mile from the shoreline, I had my share of snow days. My brothers and I took full advantage of the snow in every imaginable way, while my mother baked sugar cookies for us to decorate. We played board games and built puzzles and read books and reveled in not being at school. In a day or two, we were back in class, much to the relief of my mother.

Now, it feels like I’m having endless snow days, only without the sugar cookies and snow forts. I’m still working a full week, but rarely go in to the office. I transact real estate by computer, keep in touch with colleagues by text message, and have meetings through various programs available on my laptop. I’m tired of it, and I suspect you are as well.

I miss just walking into someone’s office to ask a question. I miss restaurants. And even when I do get out to a grocery store, it’s an eerie experience, with shelves emptied of critical supplies, people wearing masks, and everyone on edge as we move carefully to maintain a “safe” distance.

And I really, really miss church. I get my sermon every week, but it’s not the same. I can tell you from years of experience in the pulpit that a sermon is an interactive experience. You can feel the congregation going through the message with you, and when I see a speaker who is clearly alone in front of a camera, I know they are missing the feedback. For all they know I’m eating pistachios and spitting the hulls into a vase. I’d rather be there in person to feel, as well as hear, a good message.

I feel too silly singing along with the praise leaders, their I-phone sending out the video from their living room, he at the piano and she harmonizing. They are talented, I am not, and I don’t have a congregation to cover up my caterwauling so I just wait it out.

Even the prayer is awkward. It may be in real time, but if I’m not in the room with them, I don’t get the same connection.

You don’t know how important community is to you until you don’t have it. Work, shopping and church are all out of sync, and I don’t like it. I still work because I need to, and I still shop because I have to get stuff. But church is different. I still go to church online because I want it, I need it, and the barriers that make it feel strange can’t keep me from it.

The truth is, as much as I loved snow days, I was always ready to head back to school when the weather permitted. And I still cherish an unexpected day off from work, but I will be so glad to get back to the office routine when this is over.

And oh, how much I will be happy to get back to church. Whether I’m in the pulpit or the pew that first Sabbath back, I am going to praise God that I can get back to worship the way I enjoy, with real handshakes and all of us singing and a genuinely interactive sermon. How much I miss the community it gives me!

Right now, though, please take a minute to reflect on something: There are people in your church who miss it every week. They used to be there, but age and infirmity caught up with them, and against their wishes they are homebound on Sabbath mornings. They can catch a sermon online, but it’s not a substitute for being with people to praise God in His sanctuary. What you feel now, they feel regularly, and it’s not going to change in a few weeks or months. This is their life.

So, when you get back, rejoice! But also remember those who can’t get back. Pay a visit to someone who longs for the community we all used to take for granted.

—Doug Inglish, RMC Planned Giving and Trust Services director; photo by Rajmund Dabrowski

Denver, Colorado … What’s special about this Sabbath? All around Rocky Mountain Conference members are joining in the RMC Day of Fasting and Prayer. While we may be physically distanced, our hearts are together, interceding for all of our RMC members and beyond.

In addition to the ways you pray with your local church, RMC Prayer Ministries invites you to join a conference-wide prayer gathering twice, 8-9am and 6:30-7:30pm via ZOOM. Click this link to join: https://rmcsda.link/rmcdayofprayer

We’re happy to offer you a prayer guide with helpful suggestions and prayer points https://www.rmcsda.org/3d-flip-book/short-form-prayer-guide-for-2-chron-20-jehoshaphat/

Helpful tips for fasting can be found here: https://www.rmcsda.org/3d-flip-book/rmc-day-of-prayer-and-fasting-helpful-tips/

Here’s a prayer activity for young children https://www.rmcsda.org/3d-flip-book/prayer-story-activity-for-children-based-on-2-chronicles-20/

And thanks to RMC Youth for this activity for older kids/teens! https://www.rmcsda.org/3d-flip-book/rmc-youth-prayer-activity/

Apart, yet together in prayer: RMC – Let’s PRAY!

—DeeAnn Bragaw; photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Right off the bat, I’m going to be quite honest with you all in regards to how I’ve been living my life. I am a  type A person who is “go! go! go!” until there is no more mental energy to “go” anywhere else. To be transparent with you, I feel as if this way of living has been rubbing like sandpaper on my soul. I swing the pendulum back and forth so forcefully and rapidly that I’m either going at one hundred percent or in recovery. Since graduating college, I have yet to find that sweet spot of balance in between doing everything and doing nothing.

There are countless cons created by the novel COVID-19, my phone is sure to remind me of that every hour, but my goodness have I found a pro!

When business was as usual in Colorado during November 2019, my husband, Kiefer, and I began listening to audiobooks whenever we were driving in the car together. We had long been anticipating one of our favorite pastors, John Mark Comer’s, new book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Ten minutes into this book we had to hit pause and sit there soaking in the words that rang all too true for both of us. We were hurried, rushed, overwhelmed people and that is not the way of Jesus. I would like to say this book shook me enough to radically apply it to my life, but it didn’t at least not completely. Events still needed to be planned, materials still needed to be created, staff still needed to be hired, spreadsheets still needed data, and I still felt the need to find meaning in what I could do.

Fast forward to March 2020, business is not as usual in Colorado. Church buildings are closed with worship offered virtually, restaurants are closed, offices are virtual, students are distance learning, and the future is uncertain. Amazingly, this crazy time has forced me to slow down. There is still so much work to be done, but it seems more manageable. My schedule is mine to create. There’s no such thing as being “too busy” to spend quality time in prayer or to go for a walk.

While all might not be right in the world, I encourage you to find that silver lining. To reclaim your schedule, to reclaim your family, your relationship with Jesus, your life!! Use this opportunity of minimal distractions to set aside deliberate time with God each day, make meals that will bless your body, exercise, get some fresh air, have meaningful conversations with your family and friends. Use this time to feel more like a human being. God created you to enjoy life, to create, to be filled with joy and peace!

Someday, hopefully soon, COVID-19 will be our history and not our present. Life will gradually return to a new normal. So, what will your new normal be?

I leave you with these words from Commer: “Should you enlist in the war on hurry, remember what’s at stake. You’re not just fighting for a good life, but for a good soul. So, dear reader and friend, you, like me, must make a decision. Not just when your own fork-in-the-road kind of midlife crisis comes (and it will come), but every day. How will you live?” (The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, p. 255).

–Jessyka Dooley, RMC Assistant Youth Director