Me? A Leader?

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.

1 Peter 4:10

Many years ago I thought that being a leader was only for those who had gone to years of seminary or Bible school or had lived long, saintly lives. When I was 24 I was asked to be an Assistant Sunday School Superintendent. I thought the man who asked me must be mistaken or thought he was talking to someone else. I had little training, no degrees, and at 24 hadn’t lived a very long or saintly life. Joel, who turned out to be one of my life mentors, told me two things. The first thing he told me was that leadership was a gift from God and the second thing was that if I would make myself available to God, my Heavenly Father would do the rest.
Wikipedia defines "leadership" organizationally and narrowly as "the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members.” Leadership is the ability of an individual to set rules for others and lead from the front. It is an attitude that influences the environment around us. Those who are leaders in a church community are not bound by this narrow way of looking at leadership. We have the benefit of Scripture and the example of Jesus to help us on our quest of being effective leaders in the body of Christ.

In the book, “Lead Like Jesus” Ken Blanchard notes that before we can be effective leaders for Christ, we need to ask ourselves two questions, “Whose are we?” and “Who are we?” The idea behind the question “Whose are we?” is to discover, who is our primary authority, who is our primary audience? If we define our success by power, position, performance and the opinions of others we miss the point. Scripture teaches that effective leadership has its roots in pleasing God. If our goal is to please God then our attitudes and how we serve those we lead will be encouraging and effective. The second question, “Who am I?” also includes the question, “Why am I here?” Jesus knew what His Father wanted Him to do and walked out that ministry. True success is the fulfillment of the life mission God has planned for all of us. Success in life depends on the relationship we have with Christ and what level of control we will let Him have in our lives.

We have an opportunity to discover how to be effective leaders at Washington Cathedral next Saturday, September 29th at the “Leading Like Jesus”- Leadership Conference. Bill and Elaine Brammer, as the Directors of our Small Groups Ministry, have done an incredible job of putting together a great event. Pastor Tim will share his vision for this next year. I strongly encourage you, if you are already a leader or think that you are being called to leadership, to participate in this day of encouragement and learning.

By Kathi King

Excitement!

It seems that one thing all of us crave is a little excitement in our lives. We love those thrill rides at the theme parks that excite and maybe scare us a little. We love the excitement of travel and seeing new things. We get excited about holidays, birthdays and weddings. We all need a little excitement to feel alive.

As I watch the children around me I wonder at the excitement in their little faces. It doesn’t take much. They can be excited about almost anything it seems. They are excited to see a video of something they have watched many times. They get excited just playing. Children have a wonder in their eyes that helps them see excitement in the world around them. They are always ready for a new adventure.

When Jesus called His first disciples, the excitement they felt was tangible. In John 1:41, Andrew could not wait to run to tell his brother Peter “We have found the Messiah.” There was no way to contain the enthusiasm and exuberance he felt. He had to tell others. Like a little child, he was excited. Jesus tells us that we must come to God as a little child (Luke 18:17). I think that the sense of excitement is part of what Jesus is telling us we need to have.

When we first become believers in Jesus there is that sense of excitement and expectation. It is a new beginning. As we move along, we sometimes loose that sense of excitement. Our spiritual life can get a little dull. God does not want us to have dull lives, but lives of abundance and excitement. The next time you pick up your Bible, take time to pray, come to church, meet with your TLC or help with an event at the church, come with the expectation of meeting God.
Anticipate something special is going to happen. Open your heart and your eyes to something wonderful that will happen.

Our God is full of surprises and excitement. The anticipation and expectation of something happening between you and God, will keep you excited and alive! Come as a child, with wonder in your eyes, waiting to see what God will do next. Look around and feel the excitement!

By Allan Wenzel

Authentic Faith

From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. John 1:16 (NLT)

This was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Temple assistants from Jerusalem to ask John, “Who are you?” He came right out and said, “I am not the Messiah. John 1:19-20 (NLT)

“It has been said that the Gospel of John is a pool in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim.” Marianne Thompson, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Fuller Theological Seminary adds, “…and a pool in which a theologian can drown!” No book in all of literature has changed more lives than the Gospel of John. It was probably the last gospel written by the only apostle who was not martyred. This old survivor often wrote with plural pronouns as if he is representing a community of believers. Can you imagine what it will be like to hear an old preacher from our church preach in the Randy and Rod Halvorson Re-Creation Center – many years after a majority of us are in heaven? Running through the mind of that old preacher (who is likely to be one of the children on our church right now) will be the testimonies of all the collaborative efforts of many heroic individuals -- people who literally invested their lives building a great grace-filled family attempting to be a great caring network. As that old preacher shares about a church with a “positive faith” and church that believes in “teamwork approach”, I can hear that old preacher saying, with emotion and a quivering chin, “This is what we have come to believe with all of our hearts!”
There is so much in the gospel of John that I will not be able to cover, I am thankful that Allan Wenzel will be teaching a class of extended study on this great gospel by encouraging interaction in one of our adult classes.
I love the section where John discusses John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a hero of the Apostle John. John was a follower of John the Baptist before he became a follower of Jesus Christ, so the story of John the Baptist is part of his own personal journey of faith. I have a heritage of Methodism which I revere. My grandfather was a Methodist pastor, and currently both my uncle and cousin are Methodist pastors. I attended a Presbyterian seminary, and it has contributed greatly to who I am. As children, some come from a Lutheran background, or Catholic, or Salvation Army. Maybe the Boy or Girl Scouts or Rotary has contributed to your journey of faith. Maybe even being raised in a very scientific family, or a background of philanthropy and public servanthood has been part of your heritage. Whatever it is, all of it is part of your continuing story of your own faith journey.
John the Baptist was respected because he was a man who knew who he was. He was not a like a “reed blown in the wind by every fad or fancy.” I used to love to work with Junior High kids because they found out who they were sometimes by discovering who they were not. One Sunday they were going to be an athlete, then the next Sunday they would come and say I am not an athlete -- I am going to be a scholar. As their identity changed throughout their time in the youth group, I simply enjoyed being their youth pastor. What an exciting adventurous time of discovering who they were and who they were not.
John the Baptist knew he wasn’t the Messiah, and he knew he wasn’t Elijah. Many times in our search for faith and who we are, we begin by discovering who we are not. Our kids had to discover they are not us and we had to learn that also. But it was a marvelous lesson for both of us to learn. Sometimes people begin by discovering important points such as – “I can’t fake my faith,” or “I’m certainly no Billy Graham.” They will say things like – “My faith needs to have heart,” or “I can’t exclude reason and science from my faith.” Each one of these personal journey points does not surprise God but it might surprise us. And discovering who you are not is not a stop sign, it is a yield sign. That sign says “yield to who God designed you to be. Let’s make our faith as authentic as possible.” Now that is an exciting adventure of faith!

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Tim White

Seek to Understand

“When I arrived here the other day, I was fascinated with all the shrines I came across. And then I found one inscribed, to the god nobody knows. I’m here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, know who you’re dealing with.” Acts 17:22-23 (The Message)

The above passage is part of a “sermon” that Paul gives to a group of philosophers in Athens. The other night at our Small Group TLC we were exploring together how best to handle loved ones, and people around us, when their beliefs about God are different from ours. We could think of all the examples that don’t’ seem to work – argument, belittling, ignoring, etc. We all agreed that the Apostle Paul was a master at coming alongside people and then pointing them toward Jesus.

A great example of Paul’s ministry is his message to the Athenians. Before he said anything, he observed, and looked for something to help him to understand the people he was addressing. Then he used what he saw to affirm them for having beliefs--at the same time pointing them to Christ, but in the context of what they would understand. Paul had encountered Jesus personally, and often referred to the fact that seeing Jesus had turned his life around.

I don’t know about you but I have a tendency to want to “argue people into heaven.” I enjoy a good debate and sometimes let my desire to win the debate get in the way of pointing them to Jesus. But, if I take a lesson from Paul, and let my encounters with Jesus take over for my desire to win a debate, then I find that I can step back and seek to understand where someone is coming from. I can also better value their opinion and viewpoints and gently introduce some things for them to consider. When I take my own needs out of the picture, and focus on my relationship with Christ, amazing things begin to happen.

Pastor Tim is beginning a series this week to lead our church into a deeper understanding of what it means to live a life following Jesus and seeing what the Gospel of John reveals to us about living in the Kingdom of God each and every day. His first in the series is “The Jesus Secret!” In addition, he has asked our leaders to read the book “Lead Like Jesus” by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges; and he has asked our WOW ladies to do a Beth Moore study of “Jesus, The One and Only.” My prayer is that you will join me in a renewed focus on Jesus, and like Paul, “seek to understand before we seek to be understood.”

Blessings,
Linda Skinner

God's Workmanship

Having recently celebrated another birthday (as I have heard it said “this was the 20th celebration of my 39th birthday”), I have come to appreciate some of the finer things of this life. I believe those finer things are the people God brings into our lives.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we have some pretty fantastic people around our church. I have been particularly “blown away” by some of the young people who are interning at Washington Cathedral in areas of ministry. These men and women have a love for God that is inspiring to watch. They all have jobs, go to school, and yet find time to serve the church in amazing ways. They are people like Becca White, McKenzie DeBow, David Gunther, Sara Clark, Ben McCary and Ricardo Uribe. If you ever think that God’s workmanship is in anyway lacking in our young people, you need to sit down with anyone of these people and just talk to them for a few minutes. You will find out that God has prepared some great people to do His work. They organize and lead some of our worship services; they lead praise teams; they lead youth groups, and they display the love of Christ while they are doing God’s work.

Last Saturday night at about 7:30 pm, after dinner in the HRC, Rich and I walked through the Atrium and saw Becca White and Ben McCary stacking and rearranging chairs for the 8:00 service. I stopped and asked if they needed any help because it looked like a big job for just the two of them. Becca smiled and said “No thank you, this is a good time for us to pray for the service while we’re moving the chairs.” I walked out and breathed a prayer of “thank you Lord for people like Becca and Ben--I know Your work will continue because of Your workmanship in them.”

I could tell you similar stories about each of the interns but we’ll save those for later. My prayer for all of us is that we all take stock of the finer things in our lives--the people around us – those works of God doing what they were created to do.

Great Master, teach us with Your skillful hand;

Let not the music that is in us die!

Great Sculptor, hew and polish us;

nor letHidden and lost, Your form within us lie!

—Horatius Bonar

God Loves Science

He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power, his understanding has no limit. Psalm 147:4-5

My Dad taught me to love the stars. He pointed out the constellations to me and told me their names. Our family camped in the Adirondack Mountains for two weeks each summer. That was the best place for stargazing.

The air was clean and there wasn’t much manmade light to mess up the show. The sky was spectacular. We’d stare into the vast canopy until our necks were sore.

Science doesn’t dim the wonder of Nature; in fact, it can be a lens that allows us to look more deeply into God’s handiwork.
Dr. Paul Brand was a pioneer in restorative surgery for leprosy victims. He said, “I have been through medical school, and was trained in surgery. I learned about anatomy and physiology and pathology. I studied germs and cancer. I know what to do when people are injured. Yet, I have come to realize that every patient of mine, every new-born baby, in every cell of its body, has a basic knowledge about how to survive and how to heal, that exceeds anything that I shall ever know. That knowledge is the gift of God, who has made our bodies more perfectly than we could ever have devised.”

Molecular Biologist and author, Dr. John Medina, has said, “When you are curious, you become fearless. You don’t care what’s out there. You just want to know. Curiosity has the strong ability to make you look at the world with wide-eyed wonder and ask How was this made?”

Dr. Medina is very clear about the passion that animates his scientific investigations...

“Curiosity means more to me than I can tell you. It even influences my theology. If you are curious enough about your origins, you’ll bump face-to-face with Jesus Christ – because nobody else is out there.”

Scott Burnett

If you’re interested in hearing more from Dr. John Medina, he’ll be interviewed by Pastor Tim in our Sunday morning services on August 26th.

A Time of Inspiration

And I have put my words in your mouth and hidden you safely in my hand. I stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth. I am the one who says to Israel, ‘You are my people!’ Isaiah 51:16 (NLT)

Weekly at our staff meetings we have been discussing in sequence each book of the Bible. This past week our topic was Psalms. We all agreed how much the Psalms mean to each of us because they are a collection of poetry and in this collection there is a Psalm that speaks to just about every human emotion we have experienced or will experience.
We shared with each other our favorite of the Psalms and as each person shared their favorite, everyone was blessed by the other’s sharing. We then had an assignment to take 10 minutes to write devotionally about our favorite Psalm. Many had some wonderful things to share, but one particular person when they shared everyone in the room knew that this was a “God inspired” moment.

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines “inspiration” as “a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation.” The pause of silence (which it is very unusual for our staff to experience silence in one of our meetings) and the look of reverence on everyone’s face exposed to any observer that this is a “divine moment” inspired by God.

The favorite Psalm of this person was a favorite of many – Psalm 23. And as she shared her inspiration, she did so with such humility saying “I just wrote Psalm 23 in my own words; nothing special.” Then she went on to read what she wrote down. Here is Psalm 23 as Pastor Marilyn Biggs was inspired to paraphrase it for us (Our prayer is that you find it as divine as we did at the reading of these words):

Psalm 23Paraphrased by Marilyn Biggs

The Lord is my shepherd-And I am one of his little lambs
He leads me and guides me and walks with meAnd protects me and provides for me.
When I am going through difficult times and dark placesHe walks with me through them.
He comforts me and when I am sad or hurting.My cup overflows,
And His goodness and love and mercy are always with me.
And that will continue all the days of my life here on earth and in Heaven forever.