These are certainly issues deserving our prayerful attention, but I also wished we had more time for serious discernment and prayer about other pressing issues affecting all of us, like...
A Pandemic of Affluenza: Our members are becoming increasingly affluent, building expansive homes, going on Caribbean cruises and enjoying the finest of fares, while the gap between people of privilege and wealth and the world’s poor and homeless becomes ever wider.
Excommuni-mania. While excommunication of individual members in the pattern of Matthew 18 has become almost unheard of, whole congregations are withdrawing from communication and fellowship with fellow believers in other whole groups of churches they have been a part of for decades. In my own lifetime, we have gone from having three Anabaptist communions in Rockingham County alone to over a dozen today.
Sports Attention Disorder. Super Bowl Sunday, for example, may generate more interest and engagement on the part of many members than do Good Friday, Easter and World Communion Sunday combined.
Fidelity Deficit Disorder. Teens and young adults, gay and straight alike, are increasingly experiencing physical intimacy with multiple partners, then often living together in undocumented marriages before having a church blessed wedding. The use of readily available pornography is also adversely affecting members of our communities at an ever younger age.
MAGA-phoria. Ever more of our members are aligned with election deniers, insurrectionists, gun regulation opponents, climate crisis deniers and advocates for an America-first, nationalist and militaristic agenda that is unwelcoming of refugees and people of other races and ethnic groups. Our members on both the political left and right are increasingly alienated from each other.
There is so much to praise God for in the family of faith that has been home to me for most of my adult life. May God grant us wisdom to discern a way forward in the spirit of Lord's prayer in John 17, the experience of Jewish and Gentile congregations at odds with each other in Acts 15, and the appeals for unity on the part of missionary Paul in his letters to the Corinthians, Ephesians and others.
Notes, Prayers and Praises
LEWIS AND MARY ELLEN OVERHOLT celebrated their wedding anniversary January 13. Congratulations!
DAVID WEAVER GOT THIS RESPONSE to a Christmas card he sent to someone on a list of prisoners often forgotten by the outside world: “I've lost all my family members who cared enough to send cards in the past 23 years, so I only get a few during the holidays. I'm still on a quest to have an Ancestry DNA test done so I can find my biological father, who is unaware of my existence. My mother served in the Navy with him and never told my father about me. She left the service and gave me up to my grandparents who adopted and raised me. The VA Department of Corrections just won't let me use a DNA …It’s an ongoing battle, but I feel that all hope is lost and I will never find my father before he passes away. The passage of time slowly takes away all the joy of life and leaves nothing but sadness, but your card helped a little for that. Merry Christmas.” - Tom Melnyczyn Deerfield Correctional Center
February Study Themes
12 Matthew 13:24-43 Parable of wheat and weeds (Psalm 84:1-7)
19 Matthew 16:24--17:8 Passion prediction, bearing the cross, Transfiguration (Psalm 41:7-10)
26 Matthew 18:15-35 Church discipline, forgiving 70 times 7, parable of unforgiving servant (Psalm 32:1-2)
February Services, 3:30-5:00 pm
Worship and sharing: Elly Nelson
Bible Study: Harvey Yoder
12 Location: online
Worship and Sharing: Lois Rivera-Wenger
Bible Study: Dick Dumas
19 Location: Heritage Haven conference room
Worship and Sharing: Harvey Yoder
Bible Study: Kent Palmer
26 Location: online
Worship and Sharing: Lois Rivera-Wenger
Bible Study: Elly Nelson
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