Low-Tec Christmas Eve

Our little Bible Church has done a service of Christmas carols and Scripture for the past 5 or 6 years on Christmas Eve out in a shed on our farm. Low-tec, unrehearsed, everybody participates. If we have a recent baby born in the group, parents and child portray Joseph, Mary & Jesus. This year there was no suitable infant, so one of our teenage girls played the role (with plastic Jesus). Our neighbor brings one of his sheep to stand in the corner, and sometimes it doesn't stand very well, but the kids know it will be there and look forward to seeing it.
Folks from the community and friends from previous church families often come. This year there were about 70 in all, including a friend who brought his violin and volunteered to accompany the piano player as we sang the traditional carols.
One of our Elders led the service, but there were many (2nd graders, teens, grandparents) who read passages of Scripture from prophecy to fulfillment of Christ's birth. Together we marveled at God's Wonderful Gift.
And when it was over, a couple dozen of us who had no other obligations came into the house and fellowshipped together (with the usual cookies & goodies).
That was Christmas Eve. And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate.

John Deere or Dear John

Nearly every Sunday Josh brings my husband a drawing. Not so spectacular, perhaps, but Josh is 5 years old, and he executes the drawing during the worship service. And my husband is usually the preacher, and the artwork bears no relationship to the message from Scripture.

It does, however, open a window into what Josh thinks about.

Josh is a farmer at heart, even though he owns no land. Since Josh and his family have become a part of the Living Hope Bible Church body, he and my husband have shared many tractor experiences…plowing, picking corn, combining. Josh can tell you lots of things about farm implements, too. He relates the color green to John Deere, red to Massey Ferguson and blue to New Holland. He understands the planting and harvesting cycles. He can identify which implements are used and when. Josh thinks deeply about farming activities. Nearly all the time.

And that brings me back to Josh’s artwork.

He draws intricate pictures of tractors and plows, planters and combines, all to scale. The mechanics of farming are important to him. He also draws a picture of himself and a larger one of Mr. Elwood…but those are a bit different than the tractor pictures. The people have no faces and they stand apart from the moving tractors. It’s as though the people are included only to operate the equipment. They are just accessories to the action, just John Doe for the John Deere. The importance is in the “farming”…not in the farmer.

I’ve been thinking about whether we do the same thing in the church.

Has the church become only a hi-tech calendar of events and activity, a worship posture, a problem to be solved, a dispenser of social change and spiritual security, or does the church have faces?

Are the people just accessories to the agenda? Or are they the agenda?

How does Jesus see His Church…as a shed full of tractors and plows, or as a house of faces? Does He see "John Doe" or "dear John"?

How do you see it?

Heritage Day 2007

The Living Hope Bible Church popcorn stand did a booming business today at Oostburg's biennial Heritage Day. We served hundreds of cups of freshly popped corn--free! It was a great opportunity to interact with other people in our community, explain God's grace in freely providing salvation through the sacrificial death of His own Son, hand out Bibles and other literature and serve the Lord as we served others.

Face painting, Gospel nails and a beanbag game were fun for the kids, too.

Hope you enjoy the pics!

Free Popcorn!

Every two years, the nearby community of Oostburg celebrates their "Heritage Day." It's a pretty low-key event...the equivalent of a big family reunion. The community was founded by Dutch Calvinist immigrants in the mid-1800's, and a lot of their descendants have chosen to remain in the area.

The demograpics have changed a lot over the past 30 years, though, as many urban dwellers have moved into the area. Although the village still has a semi-rural, hometown appearance, the population has doubled, and the heritage of many of the residents is no longer Dutch.

That said, Heritage Day has become an over-sized block party with Center Avenue shut down, quartet singing in the Pizza Ranch parking lot, and plenty of food stands and old-fashioned bargains to be had. Tour the local fire trucks and rescue squad, buy some books at the Library book sale, take ride in a horse-drawn wagon, catch up on the local news over a piece of home-made pie.

Living Hope Bible Church is a bit of an anomaly among the established churches...a newcomer, just like the folks who've moved in from Milwaukee or Grafton or Sheboygan...so we try to use the opportunity to get to know people and let them get to know us.

That's where the popcorn comes in.

We always hand out free popcorn. No cost to anybody, except us. We also do free face painting for the kids. And we get to explain why we are doing this...Because Jesus Christ, at the greatest cost to Himself, has provided our salvation. We cannot earn it. We cannot pay anything for it. All we can do is accept it, just as our friends accept a cup of popcorn.

When we do the face painting, we use just 5 colors to explain who God is and what He is like. We tell the kids about heaven and God's desire to have us there with Him. We use the dark color to explain the darkness of our sin and the red to tell of Jesus' death on the cross to pay for that sin. The white shows us dressed in Christ's own purity and righteousness as we trust Him as our substitute/sacrifice, and green stands for growth as believers and God's conforming us to the image of His Son through the power of His Spirit.

Free popcorn...free face paint...illustrations of God's free gift to us through the blood of His Son.

I can't wait to use these simple tools to tell the old, old story once again.

What kinds of "tools" do you use to tell others about the "hope that lieth in you"? Please share some of the things you've found to be successful. Maybe we can use them next time!