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Archives For November 30, 1999

Pastor, go on a mission trip

ib2newseditor —  August 25, 2016

coffee cup with a world map

I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t always understood why being on mission both personally and as a church is so vital. I used to skip the “missions” chapel services in seminary because I wrongly believed that missions and being a pastor were two separate callings. I just wanted to be a pastor. Sadly, the first church I pastored wasn’t very mission-minded because I wasn’t.

However, I am now convinced that one of the vital roles of pastors and church leaders is to lead the church to fully embrace God’s call to be involved in their local community and beyond. My heart now understands that the church should be a strong community of mobilized missionaries. It is now my desire to lead the church through preaching, mission trips, and other creative ways so that missions becomes part of our church’s DNA.

I believe that one of the first ways to lead your church to be on mission is to be a leader who is on mission. I am convinced that when the leader of a church is passionate about the mission of God and living a missional life, that focus and zeal will naturally overflow into the hearts of those in the pew.

When a leader is passionate about the mission of God, that zeal will overflow to people in the pews.

All throughout Scripture we clearly hear God’s call to missional living. We see a clear gospel focus when Christ sends out the 12 disciples in Luke 9 and again when he sends out the 70 in Luke 10. We hear God’s heart when we read the Great Commission and Acts 1:8. In our head, we can know that God wants us to live this life with passion for the gospel, but it is so hard to keep the main thing the main thing.

When being on mission becomes part of the leader’s DNA, the church hears about it through his preaching, sees it through his life, and feels it through his tears for people who are lost without Christ.

Though my mind is now thoroughly convinced of the importance of leading my church to be on mission, I must continually remind my heart about God’s mission. Here are some of the practices that help my heart to be missions-minded:

Personally participating in at least one mission trip a year. These times are good for my walk with God. I need to see God move in ways I cannot explain. Often these trips become spiritual revivals for my heart. I try to alternate between going overseas and going somewhere in the U.S. each year.

Reading missions books and biographies of missionaries. Some of the books that make me cry are “10 Who Changed the World” by Daniel Akin, “The Insanity of God” by Nik Ripken, “The Hole in our Gospel” by Richard Stearns, and “Seven Men” by Eric Metaxas.

Attending missions training sponsored by IBSA, and conferences sponsored by the North American Mission Board. Some of the conferences that have recently helped my missions heart are NAMB’s Send Conference, the Midwest Leadership Summit hosted by IBSA, an IMB Missionary Commissioning service, and the IBSA and SBC Annual Meetings.

I’m not always looking for new programs or new ideas at these conferences, though I often come home with an idea for how we can do missions differently or better at Immanuel.

Talking with missionaries. I love hearing their heart, their struggles, and their successes. You can connect with church planting missionaries on a vision tour hosted by NAMB or IBSA, and the International Mission Board is always happy to send a missionary on furlough to preach at your church.

Most missionaries also send out regular e-mail prayer newsletters. While these messages remind me to pray for the missionary, they also encourage me as I read about some creative things others are doing all across the world for King Jesus.

Spending time with other believers who are on fire for Jesus and who are getting it done sharing the gospel. Often, these lunches and the time I spend with these kinds of believers greatly challenges me.

What a joy it can be when a church understands that God has commissioned them to be the light in a dark world. What a joy it can be when church members leave to plant churches, surrender to ministry, lead their co-worker to Christ, and go to the nations.

The steps you take to fuel your missions heart are steps toward God’s heart, enabling your entire church to be on mission! Keep chasing him, my friends.

– Sammy Simmons is pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Benton.

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If I were your enemy

ib2newseditor —  August 11, 2016

Fear Concept Wooden Letterpress Type

I am part of a very lively, very opinionated Sunday school class. Most of us are in our 50s and 60s, which, of course, means there is also great wisdom in our class (or so we’d like to think!). There are many times when our class discussions veer off into politics, pop culture or current events. This almost always results in hand-wringing, head-shaking, and longing for “the good old days.”

A couple of weeks ago, one of my classmates, a father of two, told us how sad and fearful he had felt that weekend when he was watching his kids play, thinking, “What if this time, right now, is the best time of their lives? What if it’s downhill from here?” What a sad thought!

It reminded me of something I had read in “Fervent,” Priscilla Shirer’s book on prayer:
“If I were your enemy, I’d magnify your fears, making them appear insurmountable, intimidating you with enough worries until avoiding them becomes your driving motivation.”

Shirer says fear is one of Satan’s primary schemes for crippling God’s people. I’m not talking about legitimate concern or warnings of godly wisdom; I’m talking about incessant worry, up-all-night anxiety, and worst-case scenarios that become the only probabilities you can imagine.

These were the kinds of fears my friend in class was talking about. And it made me mad! But not at him. I was mad at the enemy for messing with him, for messing with me, for messing with all of us! In class that day, I felt compelled to tell him, “Don’t give Satan that power over you!”

Satan is NOT God, and he’s not God’s counterpart or peer. They’re not even on the same playing field! Stop allowing his “spirit of fear” to invade our lives. We need to pray fervently and strategically against the enemy, as Shirer writes in “Fervent.” You and I, coming to the Father through the mighty name of Jesus, can pray like the victorious saints of God we’ve been empowered to be!

With all that’s going on in the world, I totally understand where my friend is coming from. But I don’t want him to live with a spirit of fear. I will continue to remind myself and those I love to pray fervently.

He is my God, and I trust him. More than ever before!

Carole Doom is IBSA’s information specialist and a member of Living Faith Baptist Church in Sherman.

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Long Walks and Deep Talks

ib2newseditor —  August 4, 2016

Walking

One thing I love about summer is the opportunity for long walks. Beth and I have a three-mile circuit that takes us from our house down to a nearby lake and back. Usually we walk it after dinner, but before dark, with our blind dog Willy. Our nest of three sons is empty now, and so we have just this one furry kid to follow us around.

It’s not really the walk itself that I value, though. It’s what happens there. By the time we walk, Beth and I have usually taken dinnertime to catch up with one another on the day’s events, and what arrived in the mail, and what we each heard from friends or family that day.

The walk is for deeper talk. That’s when we tend to discuss longer term plans for the future, or longer view reflections on where we’ve been. We talk not just about our kids’ activities, but about their well-being and their life decisions. We talk not just about short-term purchases, but about long-term investments. We talk not just about our church routines, but about our spiritual lives.

It usually takes a while to get past perfunctory, obligatory prayers I tend to settle for when time is short.

Sometimes our local son, Caleb, and his wife, Laura, walk with us. Those are rich times. Often Laura will walk alongside Beth and engage in one conversation, while Caleb and I will pair up a few steps behind them. Sometimes the two conversations will blend, and mix, and then separate again. We all like to hear as much as possible.

But these aren’t the 10- or 20-word texts we exchange with our kids during the day. These are often significant conversations about problems, and dreams, and life decisions, and dilemmas. Long walks encourage deeper talks.

And then there are the long walks I take by myself, to have deeper talks with God. Sometimes I make time for them during the regular routine of life. But often I need a vacation or a few days off or a different setting in order to pull away.

During the regular rhythms and busyness of life, my prayer times can grow so brief, so repetitive, so lightweight. Like the chitchat of a dinner conversation or the insufficiency of a text, I can settle for such trivial communication with God. But when I walk for a while with him it’s easier to remember that he really knows and loves me in my deepest, innermost parts, and that he longs to meet me there too, and not just in the shallows of a busy life.

Over a few recent days of long walks and deep talks this summer, I remembered again that it usually takes a while just to get past the perfunctory, obligatory prayers that I tend to settle for when time is short. I know there’s nothing wrong with those prayers, just like there’s nothing wrong with catching up over dinner on the day’s activities. It’s just that there are so many more significant things to talk about. But you only seem to get there when you take the time.

This past week I walked and talked to places of deep confession, and pleading, and worship, and peace. Once the lighter weight stuff was off my chest, there were several minutes and miles of silence as I looked for the right words to tell God things I then remembered that he knows already. Yet when those words came, they were cathartic and soothing to my soul.

Long walks can lead to deep talks, with our spouses, our kids, and yes, our God. May you find time for the long walks you need this summer.

– Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org.

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Is preaching passe?

Meredith Flynn —  August 6, 2015

COMMENTARY | Nathan Carter

Nathan_Carter_August4In his little book, “The Priority of Preaching,” Christopher Ash writes what every pastor has thought at some point.

“Is it really helping when we spend so much of our week laboring at the Word of God, preparing to preach it to the churches we serve…Is it worth slogging away preparing Sunday’s sermon with such a world of need outside?”

Maybe you are a pastor and you have doubted whether your preaching is really doing anything. Maybe you are a church member who sometimes falls asleep during sermons and you wonder if there is a better way of connecting with today’s postmodern culture. Is preaching a thing of the past?

We are far from the Puritan days when one minister apologized to his congregation for preaching a two-hour sermon and they all replied, “For God’s sake sir go on, go on!” During the era of the Baby Boomers, preaching in many churches became a casual talk on how biblical principles can address felt needs, bolstered by the use of multimedia technology.

Many Gen Xers and Millennials are now looking for new expressions of church, and the very idea of preaching is being re-imagined. Wouldn’t it be more authentic to have a dialogue about the Bible where everyone could share his or her own experiences and insights?

I define preaching as one-directional, verbal proclamation of God’s Word culminating in the gospel. And I still maintain that this is an absolutely essential practice for the church. Why? For one, we see it happening all over the Bible (i.e. Acts 10:33-44). That’s descriptive, not necessarily prescriptive, you might say. Well, it is also expressly commanded elsewhere (i.e. 2 Tim. 4:2).

But couldn’t the intent behind “preach the word” be fulfilled in other ways than one person talking at other people for an extended time? I certainly believe there are several different legitimate styles of preaching. But the method of preaching is critical.

We need times when we bite our tongues as we are confronted by the authority of God’s Word. In an age of relativism and rebellion against authority, it makes sense why we don’t want to sit under preaching. We don’t want doctors; we’d rather self-diagnose. The idea of a wiki-sermon that we all have a hand in constructing is much more appealing. But our great need is to hear, “Thus saith the Lord,” and let his external word rebuke us, call us to repent, make us ready to receive the message of the gospel, and then respond in faith and obedience.

Hearing a declaration of something that has happened, something to which you can’t contribute a thing but must respond to with either belief or disbelief, best comports with the gospel. Since there is a constant need to have the double-edged sword of God’s Word pierce our souls to expose our sinful hearts and then graciously present Christ to us in all his resplendent glory so that we can trust in him as our righteousness and healer, preaching will always be indispensable.

There is a place for small group discussions and seminars and life-on-life mentoring. But preaching is an essential element of the life and health of a church. The practice of preaching can be abused (when it becomes a chance to express one’s own ideas instead of expound a text), but that shouldn’t cause us to avoid its proper use. Some preachers are more gifted than others, but the mark of a mature believer is to be easily edified as long as the Word of God is being preached.

Charles Spurgeon said, “I do not look for any other means of converting men beyond the simple preaching of the gospel and the opening of men’s ears to hear it. The moment the Church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her. It has been through the ministry that the Lord has always been pleased to revive and bless His Churches.”

May he do it again today!

Nathan Carter is pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Chicago.

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Is your church a place of grace?

Meredith Flynn —  July 16, 2015

COMMENTARY | Charles Lyons

Floyd and Rad certainly stood out when they showed up in our tiny congregation. I had been pastoring a couple years. Obviously not from around here, they did seem familiar with church. Conversation revealed they were both from Arkansas; one from a Baptist church, the other from an Assembly of God church. Maybe they were 20 years old. My guess is they met in high school.

Charles_Lyons_July16They, like thousands before them, had fled home and familiarity for faraway, big-city anonymity. I’m not sure why, but they didn’t hide their homosexuality from me. I’ll never forget the anguished question during one tearful conversation with Floyd:
“How can this be wrong?” He was overwhelmed with need, emotion, passion, and counterfeit love.

I have to say, getting to know them as individuals radically changed my rabid hostility toward those I before would have called “perverts.” I didn’t change what I believed. My conviction that God’s Word is true was not threatened. But I had an overwhelming desire to be a channel of grace and, as John puts it, “love in truth.”

It was God’s truth and love by God’s definition that eventually contributed to Floyd and Rad drifting away from the church,
looking for something else I could not offer.

Let me tell you! I’m as opinionated a person as you’ll ever meet. Furthermore, I am able to passionately, hey, vehemently
articulate my views. I’m especially dogmatic and emphatic when it comes to behavior I don’t engage in, and I can really preach against that stuff!

Many of us have gone through a process to get where we are today. We used to regularly rant against “easy targets” like communists and hippies, and these days those targets have been replaced by homosexuals, transgender, and “gay marriage” (as if there really were such a thing). And some continue to rant rather than to take a Bible approach.

Should we ignore these things or begin to accept them? Of course not, but we need to confront them biblically. After all, we
are not just guarding our culture or doing battle with sinners. We are representing God and his grace as well as his warning.

Jesus’ harshest condemnations target self-righteous religious zealots. His greatest compassion is expressed to those most
ignorant of, rebellious toward, or distant from God. He said, “I didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

It goes without saying, those who are determined to pursue any kind of sin are not going to be comfortable or in close fellowship in a Bible-preaching church.

That said, there is a whole slice of “sinnerdom,” and for sure some wrestling with same-sex attraction, who would seek help
from people they knew loved them. Is that not the spirit of Jesus?

How do we communicate God’s love?

How do we communicate God’s love to those who are out of bounds in any way, shape, or form? Think over-indulgence. Adultery. Consider any form of destructive behavior. What about unnecessarily angry people?

How do we express God’s love to those who are way, way out of bounds?

Is God’s love unconditional? Is the love I live, preach, teach, and lead our congregation to demonstrate just as unconditional?

Should the church be the last place these out-of-bounds think of for seeking help?

Do the kids attending our churches know these are safe places to bare their souls and share their secrets?

Understand me. There is always someone reading between the lines looking for compromise if not sellout, and I am not advocating in any way changing or messing with what God says about any particular sin. I am saying our churches need to be havens of hope, dispensaries of love and deliverance, places of grace.

The rebels and unrepentants will cast themselves into an eternity without God… but they should go with the knowledge that we loved them. Those willing to believe God’s promises, trusting him for rescue, and willing to fight the flesh in fellowship with God’s people should never wonder if they have a home.

Charles Lyons pastors Armitage Baptist Church in Chicago.

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Commencement marks new chapter for inmates

Meredith Flynn —  June 1, 2015
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson leads faculty through the Darrington Prison Unit during May 9 graduation ceremonies. SWBTS photo by Matt Miller

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson leads faculty through the Darrington Prison Unit during May 9 graduation ceremonies. SWBTS photo by Matt Miller

HEARTLAND | From Keith Collier’s report for the Southern Baptist TEXAN and Baptist Press

Inside the maximum security Darrington Prison Unit in Rosharon, Texas, May 9 was graduation day.

“You have done a great deal to educate the mind,” said Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, during the ceremony, “but this program is a little different, isn’t it? Because the program has not just been about the mind; it’s been about the heart.”

Patterson was speaking to the first-ever graduating class of Southwestern’s seminary prison program, itself a first for the state of Texas. The program was inspired by New Orleans’ Baptist Theological Seminary’s long-standing educational efforts at Angola Prison in Louisiana.

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SWBTS Photo by Matt Miller

At Darrington, 33 inmates received bachelor’s degrees, as underclassmen cheered and watched a video feed of the ceremony (photo at right).

“When we started this, (Darrington) was one of our toughest, problematic units, and I’m here today to announce that it’s now one of our best,” said Texas State Senator John Whitmire in a press conference before graduation day.

Many of the graduates will leave Darrington this summer for other prisons, where they’ll help chaplains start similar programs. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called the graduates “prison apostles.”

“I’m overwhelmed at what God has done,” he said at the ceremony. “Only God could do this.”

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Where did the angry birds go?

Meredith Flynn —  April 2, 2015

COMMENTARY | Meredith Flynn

PrintOne of the major stories out of last year’s Leadership Summit hosted by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission was the negative reaction on social media. In fact, the “Reporter’s Notebook” column space in the following issues of the Illinois Baptist was devoted to “angry birds” who spoke out on Twitter about the speaker line-up, the subject matter, and the opinions expressed.

It seemed like almost everything that was said (or tweeted or blogged) at last year’s meeting made somebody mad.

This year, not so much. Yes, there was some chatter, according to tweets after the event, about Baptists having an agenda for tackling this year’s topic, racial reconciliation. At least one poster noted the Southern Baptist Convention should be honest about its past in regards to slavery and racial division. (One whole panel discussion and pieces of other messages were devoted to the topic.)

But most of the Twitter feedback was positive. Maybe it was because much of it came from inside the summit. Racial reconciliation may not have drawn the same large online audience as last year’s topic: sexuality. Or, there’s this possibility: At its core, the summit was a meeting about a problem that every Christian can identify with, and one for which even those outside the church see the need for a solution.

Divisions exist around racial identity, and in recent days, they have been especially ugly, violent, frightening and real.

Leaders at the summit seemed to view racism as a common enemy. And, for Christians, as sin. There are some things you don’t do anymore once you have a relationship with Christ, said recent Southern Baptist Convention President Fred Luter.

“Don’t tell me you’re saved and still lying like a rug. Don’t tell me you’re saved and still cussing like a sailor. Don’t tell me you’re saved and still mean as a pit bull. Don’t tell me you’re saved and still don’t like someone because of the color of their skin.”

From the podium in Nashville, summit speakers talked about racial division as a universal problem, and a universal responsibility. Thabiti Anyabwile compared having skewed ideas about racial identity to walking into a cafeteria and seeing one table of diners that look like you, and one that doesn’t. You immediately think the table that looks like you has something in common with you, and is therefore safe for you.

“The mind is a relentless stereotyper,” Anyabwile said. No matter who you are. At the ERLC Summit, speakers and attenders were unified by that knowledge, and in the belief that the gospel is the only thing that has the power to reconcile people to God and to one another.

And the angry birds, for the most part, stayed away.

Meredith Flynn is managing editor for the Illinois Baptist newspaper.

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What our culture’s storytellers teach us about God’s story

Meredith Flynn —  March 19, 2015

COMMENTARY | Nick Rynerson

“Pop culture” is often treated like a dirty word in the church—thought to consist of mostly irredeemable entertainment produced to make money off the masses. A common approach is to avoid secular music, films, art, and television, or at least to not admit to consuming it all that much.

But that isn’t often what our real lives look like. Most of us are at least closet pop culture consumers—we indulge in one or two sitcoms, a favorite secular radio station, or a superhero movie every now and then.

And maybe that’s okay.

Nick_Rynerson_March15Popular culture is not the enemy; first and foremost, pop culture is a place for storytellers to, well, tell stories. Moral discretion is important. (And biblical! See 1 Corinthians 8:7-9.) But we miss a wealth of spiritual and theological depth if we chalk up all entertainment created by non-Christians as irredeemable and misguided; we also miss out on the opportunity to identify and empathize from a distinctly Christian perspective (Acts 17:28).

Stories offer us insights into our culture’s longings, revealing God’s truth in the world around us. In his excellent book “The Stories We Tell,” Kentucky pastor Mike Cosper reminds us that a story is never just a story—it’s a window into our culture’s imagination and longings (see Romans 2:12-15).

“Storytelling—be it literature, theater, opera, film, or reality TV—doesn’t aim at our rational mind . . . It aims at the imagination, a much more mysterious and sneaky part of us, ruled by love, desire, and hope,” Cosper writes. “When people, against their better judgment, find themselves hooked on a show, we can trace the line back to find the hook in their imagination.”

Stories, according to Cosper, can reveal much more about a person, people group, or culture than a strictly informative presentation or a list of facts. Stories communicate what people truly desire.

Take, for example, a certain Best Picture nominee from last year. The movie contains some strong language, an ambiguous ending, and other elements that might lead some Christians to believe that it has nothing to offer spiritually (and for some to wisely not engage the film). However, if we look closer, we can clearly see some distinct things the storytellers—the director, writer, characters, etc.—believe about God, life, and themselves.

Without spoiling the film, which centers on the relationship between a talented young jazz drummer and his demanding/abusive instructor, the characters have a very human desire: to be great. The devotion of the characters to the pursuit of greatness, and its sway over their future happiness, is deeply identifiable. Like the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, the characters sacrifice their life for the pursuit of self-glory, predictably leaving themselves and others miserable.

Ever since the Fall, man has been trying to claw his way back to perfection. Everybody longs for his or her flaws to be taken away, and many of us think that if we just work hard enough, we will reach the promised land of perfection.

As Christians, we know this is vanity (Romans 3:23), but the characters in the film sacrifice their lives and their sanity to meet every iota of their own personal law. This pursuit is hardwired into us and until we find personal and entire perfection in Christ, we will always fall short.

That’s serious, biblical truth, communicated (probably unknowingly) in a 2-hour movie produced with a secular audience in mind. The next time a movie, song, or TV show comes on that you are tempted to write off as irredeemable, consider if it might have something to teach us about God, the creator of all things.

In Acts 17:22-27, Paul not only quotes Greek poetry, but also alludes to the radical truth that we’re put where we were (i.e., in our cultural context) to speak eternal truth into subjective cultural contexts. In his book, Cosper uses this example to illustrate a distinctly Christian way of story-listening.

“As Christians living in the midst of these stories, we have an opportunity to both learn and bear witness. Stories teach us a lot about ourselves and our neighbors, and they provide windows into how our world is wrestling with the effects of the fall.

“They also present opportunities to respond with the truth.”

Nick Rynerson is a staff writer for Christ and Pop Culture and works for Crossway in Wheaton.

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What we learned when we lost everything

Meredith Flynn —  January 29, 2015

COMMENTARY | Bob Elmore

Bob_Elmore_blog_calloutWaking up to the sound of a high-pitched alarm is never a good start to a day. But this morning in April 2012 started just that way. It had been a stormy night, so I initially thought it was the weather alert radio and I mentally prepared to get my family down to the basement—not an easy task, since we have two sons with profound autism who strongly resist any changes to their routines.

I groggily opened my eyes and remembered I had been sleeping on the couch in the living room with my wife and son, Mark, who has epilepsy in addition to autism. He had a seizure that night, so we had been keeping watch over him as he slept on the floor. I looked around at our dark house and saw an odd orange glow coming from Mark’s room. The shrill alarm I heard was our smoke alarm. Mark’s room was on fire!

I woke up my wife and we got our protesting sons out of the house and into the car, which we moved away from the house. We were in pajamas and bare feet while we waited for the heater in the car to warm up. We watched dark smoke billow out of our windows as our small local fire department arrived.

Somehow, my wife and I were filled with a peace that belied our circumstances. We gripped hands and prayed, thanking God for our family’s safety and especially that our son had not been in his room when the fire began—the first time we were ever grateful for a seizure.

We opened our eyes after the “Amen.” All we had in the world was given to us by God, like Psalm 24 tells us. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” We instinctively knew that He would give us what we needed, just like He always had before…and He did.

Our dear neighbors and loving church family in Winchester, Ill.—about an hour west of Springfield—brought us blankets, clothes, coffee and emotional support. Over the next days, weeks and months, we would watch God fold His arms around us by bringing people to us. We had spent years together trusting God to take care of our atypical family each day, and He had always proved Himself faithful and now continued to do so.

Within three months, we had relocated to Springfield, where I now serve as IBSA’s short-term missions coordinator. We have a new house and new furnishings. Most importantly, we have another reason to entrust all that we have to God. Matthew 6:21 reminds us that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Our treasure always lies with our God. That way, our hearts will forever be in a safe and peaceful place.

Bob Elmore is IBSA’s short-term missions coordinator. He and his family are members of Western Oaks Baptist Church.

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2014: Thanks for the memories (in free verse)

Meredith Flynn —  December 29, 2014

HEARTLAND | Eric Reed

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy hands have made in 2014…

365 days marked by evening and morning, 365 sunsets and sunrises, as 143,341,000 people were born onto this planet and 56,759,000 departed, all receiving 1,640 minutes each day and blessings beyond number, I say

Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul; thank you, Lord, for making me one of the billions you have saved by grace through faith. I was sinking deep in sin, far from your holy standard, and yet you made a Way for me—for us—to be rescued.

And His Name is Jesus.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish use of time and grant that we may more wisely employ our moments and our days to share your peace with a world that has suffered its absence this year: the death-march of ISIS and the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the kidnapped girls and the lost boys; the fear in Ferguson, and the failure of our social contract. We are grateful for God’s peace in our hearts, even as we realize the fragility of peace in our streets.

Sixty years after D-Day, bless the Greatest Generation who secured our freedom, and guard the young soldiers whose service today has redefined sacrifice.

calendar 2014.In this, the year of Ebola, we pray: Eternal Father, strong to save, whose arm hath bound the deadly wave with wonder drugs and rescue teams, hazmat suits and quarantines. For healthcare, though at times it’s costly, sparing lives that once would lost be; for ribbons pink and yellow wristbands and friends who live strong when faced with cancer. (And their hats.)

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for the year to come, we’re grateful for a stronger economy, steadier jobs, and the roof overhead. Our kids are warm and safely tucked in; thank you for the joy of children (those here now and those a’comin’).

For our Baptist family on bended knee lifting lost ones up to Thee; for our dear church, where would we be without your Body on earth that meets just down the street and comes over for small group?

For faithful friends and faithful givers, co-laborers in Christ who become brothers and sisters, the cloud of witnesses in heavenly places who cheer us on as we run our races.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed is all you made and we marvel still at your inscrutable creation…yet little things cheer our hearts and make us sing “Happy” songs. I love breakfast (oh it’s so good!), foods I eat and foods I should. Coffee hot and iced tea sweet, mittened-hands and sock-warmed feet; feeling glad when winter comes and gladder still when winter goes.

Clinging to the hope of spring, there are 10,000 reasons for my heart to sing…Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul…because whatever comes in 2015,
“I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

Eric Reed is editor of the Illinois Baptist and IBSA’s associate executive director for the church communications team. This column was written in the style of the late Joan Beck, Chicago Tribune columnist, whose annual “thanks” essays inspired readers for 30 years.

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