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This Sunday, 1 December 2013
Follow the Star
New for Advent 2013
Follow the Star is a free multimedia
series from Ministry Matters, with videos, graphics, worship elements, and
more!
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When we talked about offering an Advent
series, we wanted to do something completely different. No guilt trips, no depressing
visuals, and most of all we wanted to create a vision that would be as
inspirational to people who have experienced the Advent season for 20 years as
it would be to those experiencing it for the first time.
What came out of our vision was #FollowTheStar.
Experience the journey toward Bethlehem,
following the star through the night sky as others have done for thousands of
years. Hope, Search, Follow, Believe, and finally Rejoice with us in this blessed
season of the church year.
Each week beginning November 18th,
MinistryMatters.com will provide you with free, original worship videos and
other multimedia content that you may use in your church or any other setting.
Share the videos and graphics on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or other social
media outlets. To receive your downloads, please complete a free registration
on MinistryMatters.com. This is your content, created by our team in the hope
that we can share some of our contagious joy in the season with you.
If you love it, share it. That's all we
ask. If there are additional file types or resources that you would like us to
include in a future series, email us at feedback@ministrymatters.com. No
guarantee that we can honor every request, but we will do our best.
We wish you all the blessings of this
very joyous season.
Shane, Betsy, and Myca
Your MinistryMatters.com team
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5 Don'ts of Healthy Communication by Ron
Edmondson
In my career, I work with a lot of people
in a lot of settings. You might say my job involves a lot of relationships.
And, in the process, I have learned the key to healthy relationships is
communication. Communication is an art of sorts. Some are better at it than
others.
I have seen relationships destroyed
because of poor communication. I know marriages that could improve if we
improved the communication in the marriage. I’ve seen people avoid other
people, because they know how the communication will go when they encounter
them. I’ve known people who are short on quality relationships, and, honestly,
many times it is because they never learned or don’t practice healthy communication.
So, sincerely, this post is intended to
help. We are all guilty or some of these at times. This blogger/pastor
included. So, this is a reminder to me also.
Here are 5 Don’ts of Healthy
Communication:
Don’t always have a bigger story. This is
the one I’ve been guilty of the most of these five. Someone is telling you
their story and their experience reminds you of your experience. So, naturally,
you interrupt their story, or don’t appear to be listening closely, because you
want to share your story. But, remember, right now they are sharing “their”
experience. It is important enough to them to share it with you. Don’t try to
trump their story. It is rude and it shuts them down. Discipline yourself to
wait for the right opportunity—and be okay if it doesn’t come. Sometimes your
only role is to listen.
Don’t talk more than you listen. This
will address the person you’re thinking of in the first point that is always
sharing their story. They never listen. They don’t give you a chance to share
yours. If this is you, stop talking and listen. Ask questions. Show genuine
concern. Be interested in what others have to say too. You’ll find people more
interested in what you have to share when it’s your turn.
Don’t always be negative. All of us are
negative at times. Life is hard and it impacts us. That’s partly what
friendships are for—to share our burdens with one another. But every
conversation and every comment we make shouldn’t be negative. That makes it
difficult to build a sustainable, healthy relationship, because sometimes the
other person needs you to be positive on the day they are especially negative.
Don’t consistently have the last word.
Sure you’ve got one more word to share. We get that. You’ve already proven that
point. But, sometime let them say the final word. It’s humbling for you. And,
good. For you and them. And, the conversation. And, the relationship.
Don’t speak before you think. This is so
important. Maybe the most important. It includes the saying, “If you can’t say
something good…don’t say anything…or nothing if you want to be like Thumper…at
all.” If we could catch our words before they exit our mouths, filter them
through the power of love and grace, then release them, we could keep from
injuring those with whom we are trying to communicate. And, relationships could
thrive apart from the injury of inappropriate or awkward…often even mean-spirited
words.
Okay, be honest, upon which of these do
you need to improve? What others would you share? Remember, I shared mine. Now
your turn.
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Prayer in a Postmodern World by Alex
Joyner
Talking to “Houston in the Blind”
In the recently released Hollywood movie
Gravity, some of the most poignant moments are of people floating in space
talking into the void in the hope they will be heard. George Clooney and Sandra
Bullock portray astronauts who are set adrift when the space shuttle on which
they are working is disabled by flying debris. Having lost communication with
ground control but unsure if they might still be heard, they begin to narrate
their every move. With each transmission they report to “Houston in the blind.”
Later, Bullock’s character intercepts a
radio signal from Earth, and though she can’t understand all that is being
said, she pleads with the staticky voice to pray for her. “I’d pray for myself,
but I’ve never prayed,” she says. “Nobody ever taught me how.” The viewer can
hear her feeling of despair and disconnection from God in those words.
Although the movie has its fair share of
action and suspense, it might also be seen as a meditation on prayer in the
postmodern world. While more and more people in the United States report they
have no religious affiliation, many still turn instinctively to prayer at times
of crisis. (According to a 2008 Pew Forum report, only about 30 percent of the
unaffiliated said they believed there was no God.) How does the practice of
prayer speak to the deep longings of our age, and how can faith communities
support and encourage prayer?
Prayer Doesn’t Make Sense
One of the problems of prayer in the age
after the Enlightenment is that it doesn’t make sense—at least according to the
standards of rational investigation. Any number of studies have been conducted
to try to give prayer a scientific grounding, to prove that it is indeed
clinically effective in bringing healing or producing measurable effects in
mental health. The results have been mixed. A major 2006 study by the John
Templeton Foundation determined that intercessory prayer had no beneficial
impact on outcomes for patients undergoing heart bypass operations. This was
inconsistent with some previous studies that suggested prayer was effective.
The researchers concluded that “private or family prayer is widely believed to
influence recovery from illness, and the results of this study do not challenge
this belief.” They just couldn’t prove it.
The requirement for proof of prayer’s
efficacy has troubled many people in the contemporary world, where we are used
to justifying our actions by some metric of effectiveness. Writing in the early
20th century, English author and poet Thomas Hardy lamented the loss of a
comfortable relationship with God that was built on prayer. In the poem God’s
Funeral, Hardy notes, “How sweet it was in years far hied / To start the wheels
of day with trustful prayer, / To lie down liegely at the eventide / And feel a
blest assurance he was there!”
In a recent blog post on the website
Purple Clover, Jess Tardy relates a similar sort of wistfulness about the
comfort she wants to experience in prayer. Stopping by a makeshift church in a
shopping mall, she realized that she had no words for what she wanted to say:
“I don’t know the Lord’s Prayer by heart and my only practical knowledge of the
rosary comes from Madonna videos, so for a moment I ad-libbed my way through a
prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank you for the
blessings you have bestowed upon me. For my health, the roof over my head and
the love in my life. Thanks for the steady job and for the safe car. Thanks for
Aretha’s greatest hits and crisp fall nights and premium cable.
For Tardy, gratitude was a start, even if
she was struggling to have it “make sense.”
Cultivating Silence
Prayer has many moods. Beyond intercession
and thanksgiving, there are confession, praise, and contemplation.
Contemplative prayer practices can help people who live very busy lives put
themselves in perspective and reconnect to God, according to Presbyterian
pastor and author Daniel Wolpert, who was quoted in an Interpreter magazine
article. “They give us an opportunity to experience this Being that is very
close to us, but that is, at the same time, separate from the individual workings
of our mind,” Wolpert says.
Cultivating silence for prayer is
difficult for many people. Coming together in community for silent prayer can
be a powerful aid in overcoming that obstacle. “I think the group thing really
can’t be overestimated,” Wolpert goes on to say. “I would really encourage
people, if they’re interested in this, to find groups that are already going or
talk to people at their church and say they want to get something going.
Ideally, this is really what the church should be doing.”
“Rediscovering Our Praying Knees”
One person who has been urging churches
to prayer is Young Jin Cho, the new United Methodist bishop of the Virginia
Conference. Bishop Cho began his tenure with a call to prayer, inviting clergy
and laity to join him in dedicating an hour each day to prayer and spiritual
disciplines for the first 100 days of his episcopacy. That prayer challenge has
gone beyond the initial period, and now Cho is inviting churches to become “Prayer
Covenant Congregations.”
Cho was born in Korea and was formed by
The Methodist Church there in a tradition that emphasizes vibrant, fervent
prayer. He served the Korean United Methodist Church of Greater Washington for
many years and felt his own prayer life rekindled when one of his congregants
asked him, “Pastor, how long and earnestly do you pray?” Convicted by the
question, Cho not only dedicated himself to more disciplined prayer, but he
also instituted daily early morning prayer times for his church.
“I strongly believe that [United
Methodists] will have a new future if we humbly open ourselves to God and seek
God’s wisdom and guidance,” Cho wrote in one of his initial columns for the
Virginia Advocate. He often cites the denomination’s new Vital Congregations
initiative and says that programs like this will only succeed if there is a
renewed commitment to spiritual disciplines. “If there is no spiritual
vitality,” he says, “there can be no vital congregations.”
Prayer Covenant Congregations are asked
to commit to a series of measures to increase the teaching and practice of
prayer in their ministries. Among the commitments are holding “at least one
weekly prayer group that will include weekly prayers for the renewal and
revival” of the church, offering classes on prayer, and “moving toward at least
10% of the laity practicing a ‘one hour daily’ spiritual discipline.” Under our
own power and wisdom, “we cannot save our churches,” Cho says. But we can start
by “rediscovering our praying knees.”
An Uprising Against the Disorder of the
World
German theologian Karl Barth once said,
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the
disorder of the world.” It may signal rebellion against all that is wrong, but
it is also a kind of cooperation with the work of God in the world. As Paul
states in the Book of Romans, “We don’t know what we should pray, but the
Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans” (8:26). So when we give
ourselves to prayer, however inarticulate and feeble our attempts, we are
yielding to this work of the Spirit moving through us toward God. We are also
given the opportunity to participate in God’s ongoing work of confronting and
conquering the disorder of the world.
Sandra Bullock’s astronaut is a stand-in
for a generation that does not know how to pray and for whom clasping hands in
prayer really is a beginning. Even many people who have grown up in churches,
which are often more fascinated with the latest program rather than ancient
spiritual practices, may feel that prayer is unexplored territory. But John
Wesley, the early Methodist leader, once said, “All who desire the grace of God
are to wait for it in the way of prayer.” When churches reclaim and teach
prayer as a central, essential act, they will help long-term members and
postmodern seekers alike recognize the importance of the disciples’ request to
Jesus, “Teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).
Be sure to check out FaithLink, a weekly
downloadable discussion guide for classes and small groups. FaithLink motivates
Christians to consider their personal views on important contemporary issues,
and it also encourages them to act on their beliefs.
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Breathe Easy by Andrea Murdock
The National Basketball Association began
its regular season a few weeks ago. One player who will be in the spotlight
this year is Cleveland Cavaliers forward Anthony Bennett, the top overall pick
in this year’s draft. Last month Cavaliers’ coach Mike Brown revealed to the
media that Bennett struggles with asthma. The asthma, coupled with Bennett’s
recovery from shoulder surgery this past summer, has hampered his conditioning.
Asthma is a chronic condition that
affects millions of people and causes regular, if not constant, inflammation of
the bronchial tubes inside the lungs. This inflammation is aggravated by a
variety of factors including allergies, exercise, illness, cigarette smoke, and
even the weather. But what is most remarkable about asthma is the medical
community’s ability to treat it. Asthma used to be an ailment that kept people
from participating in activities such as sports and music. (Try playing a
trumpet solo without being able to take a deep breath.) These days it isn’t
that unusual for someone with asthma to excel as an athlete, a singer, or in
any number of other fields. The list of famous people with asthma includes
Olympic greats (such as Jackie Joyner-Kersee), former NFL stars (such as Jerome
Bettis), and chart-topping vocalists (such as Pink).
Breathe In
Those who have asthma know the
frustration of feeling trapped, as though they cannot draw in a full breath.
Most all of us have experienced feeling spiritually out of breath. Filling our
souls with the Holy Spirit is like filling our lungs with oxygen. Just as
asthmatics can “get by” without treatment by limiting their activities,
self-medicating, or pushing themselves past their healthy limits, we as
Christians can “get by” in our daily activities without renewing our spirits.
But we need to do more than simply “get by.” It is critical that we find ways
to breathe in God’s Spirit through prayer, meditation, worship, and holy
conversations with Christian friends and mentors.
Youth today face many pressures:
academic, athletic, artistic, family-based, social, and more. Just about every
young person has times when he or she isn’t sure how he or she will get by.
Just about every young person experiences doubts, temptations, and despair at
some point during his or her adolescence. These times of spiritual uncertainty
and exhaustion cannot be avoided, but they can be managed. We should never
dismiss or make light of a young person’s struggles, but we can always point
that young person toward the relief and refreshment that God offers.
Breathe Out
The truly amazing thing about athletes
like Anthony Bennett isn’t that they continued to be active with their asthma,
but that they chose to persevere through and beyond the limits of their
condition. It is easy for us to give in to frustration when we are faced with
problems that are beyond our control; but when we give up, we are forgetting
that there is no problem that God can’t solve. If we seek God during times of
spiritual exhaustion, God will lead us forward, providing rest and comfort.
Many people have successfully managed and
overcome the negative effects of chronic asthma. They have not allowed the
ailment to define them nor place limitations on them. We, as Christians, can
learn from their example. When we are spiritually short of breath, unable to
breathe in God’s Spirit, we need not throw up our hands in resignation.
Instead, we need to manage the situation by turning to God and allowing God to
fill and refresh us through the Holy Spirit.
This article is also published as part of
LinC, a weekly digital resource for youth small groups and Sunday school
classes. The complete study guide can be purchased and downloaded here.
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Advent Resurrection by Don Underwood
The disciples had been sitting around
Jerusalem for three days. The crucifixion had wiped out all their hopes and
dreams. In their understanding, Jesus was dead and buried, sealed forever in a
tomb. It’s not that they were struggling to find some thin sliver of hope. They
were totally hopeless, finished, wondering what to do with the world in which
they had been left. Then suddenly, Jesus was alive. The whole world looked
different.
I hadn’t thought about this until
recently. If you read the Bible carefully you will discover that, for some
reason, God chooses to bury things before resurrecting them. There was no
reason why Jesus couldn’t have just come down off the cross instead of being
buried. But God chose for Jesus to stay in the tomb three days, just as God
chooses for the wheat seed or the tulip bulb to stay buried in the cold winter
ground for a period before it germinates and grows.
Perhaps you have noticed in your own life
that the sense of resurrection does not come easily. It usually follows a
period of despair and hopelessness. New life springs out of the darkness of
winter.
It may seem odd to talk about Easter and
Advent together, but in fact they are inexorably linked. The open tomb is the
reason we know that our wintertime waiting is not hopeless. The coming of the
babe of Bethlehem is our reminder that God does, inevitably, come. In the end
God will come to restore earth to the perfection that was intended in the
original creation. It will be the perfection of the Garden.
And so the liturgical seasons are all
linked together in one great salvation drama. And our prayer, in each season of
life, remains the same: “Come, Lord Jesus.”
excerpt from: The Long View: Reflections
on Life, God, and Nature by Don Underwood Copyright©2013 by Abingdon Press.
Used with permission.
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Lessons from a Hospital Room by David
Dorn
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Dare to Dream by Mike Slaughter
How many times have you heard yourself
saying, “Someday I’m going to…”? Fill in the blank.
Sound familiar? I believe that “someday”
is the enemy to the gift of today. “Someday” is daydreaming. Before Jesus
Christ transformed my life, I did a whole lot of daydreaming. I used to sit in
school, stare out the window, and daydream hour after hour. I had the grades to
prove it. But daydreaming and God-dreaming are not the same thing. Daydreaming
is putting off today what you dream of for tomorrow. God-dreaming means putting
feet to faith.
I tell the people in my congregation that
my job is to remind them every week that they are going to die. Now, that may
not fit your perfect picture of how to win friends and influence people, but
time is short! The Book of James urges us to embrace the gift of today and
start experiencing no-regret living: “You don’t really know about tomorrow.
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for only a short while before it
vanishes” (James 4:14). How much of our energy is focused on reaching our version
of tomorrow, when we may dropdead before tomorrow ever arrives? James goes on
to say, “It is a sin when someone knows the right thing to do and doesn’t do
it” (4:17).
God didn’t create us to sit around
waiting to die so we can leave Planet Earth and go to heaven. He created in
each of us a unique God-dream for getting more heaven into Planet Earth. We
need to start living the life that God created us to live.
I am so blessed that I have been given a
God-dream worth living for—and dying for. It gives me the energy I need to get
out of bed every morning. It gives me purpose and makes my life one continuous
song of ascent. It gives me a glimpse of what Jesus meant when he said, “I am
come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John
10:10 KJV).
Without a God-dream, it would be so easy
for me to plateau. I know too many people who have gotten stuck. They hit their
forties or fifties and just stop. Life for them begins to be about looking back
instead of moving forward. I meet other people who are in perpetual motion but
aren’t going anywhere because they lack direction. Motion and direction are not
synonymous. Does either of those descriptions sound like you?
I wrote Dare to Dream with three purposes
in mind.
First, I want to wake you up to the God-dream
inside of you. You have one; I am sure you do. Jesus gave the dream to you when
he came into your life.
Second, I want to help you develop a life
mission statement. You may have life goals, but that’s not the same. Goals can
change by season or circumstance, but a life mission statement never changes.
Third, I want to challenge you to commit
fully to your God-directed life mission, starting now. Remember, you are going
to die. Today is the day to seize the present of the presence.
Let’s pray before we begin.
Father, you have created us for so much
more. Reveal to us how to live life in the abundance of your empowering Spirit.
May we say with Jesus when our days on this earth are done, “I have glorified
you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” Amen.
excerpt from: Dare to Dream: Creating a
God-Sized Mission Statement for Your Life by Mike Slaughter Copyright©2013 by
Abingdon Press. Used with permission.
View the introductory video clip.
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