Values 3: Healthy
Notes
Transcript
White Coat Syndrome
White Coat Syndrome
A little while ago, I went for a routine doctors appointment.
And I have to say, I’m a world class needle-phob.
It’s pretty rough!
So every time I’m in the doctor’s office, I’m a nervous wreck.
So the doc came around and checked my blood pressure, and it was like right at the edge of what they’re worried about.
She was concerned about it, so she gave me a homework assignment.
I had to check my blood pressure every day for two months and send the data back to her.
It turns out, when I’m not afraid of having my skin punctured, I’m reasonably healthy!
There are all kinds of things that serve as vital signs.
The Values So Far
The Values So Far
Worship
Worship
We are committed to authentic, Spirit-filled, Christ-centered worship in all aspects of our lives.
While we are awe struck by our worship on Sunday mornings, we recognize that the vast majority of our worship takes place Monday through Saturday! In the faith community of Beulah Presbyterian Church, we offer our whole selves as a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable act of worship.
Diversity
Diversity
We welcome and celebrate the diversity of our community; dedicating ourselves to meeting the needs of our neighbors.
Throughout our 240-year history, Beulah has seen the ebb and flow of change in our beautiful and diverse community. As we continue to serve our neighbors, we devote ourselves to creating a church where everyone belongs in the Kingdom of Christ and to growing to meet the needs of those around us.
Health
Health
We are dedicated to building the congregational life of those who call Beulah their home.
We seek to build a healthy congregation for children, youth, and adults where all can continue the life-long journey of growth in Christ. Our focus is on education through our discipleship opportunities, lasting relationships through our small group and fellowship offerings, and developing spiritual gifts of compassion, hospitality, grace, and forgiveness through our engagement with the word and world.
Vitals
Vitals
Just like me at the doctor’s office, I bet there are vital signs for the Christian faith.
In fact, I think Paul pointed a few out to us in this passage in Romans.
Rejoice in Hope
Rejoice in Hope
Superman- Look up
Superman- Look up
Look, if you thought I was obnoxious with the cycling analagies in the sermons…
There’s a new Superman movie coming this summer, and I am PUMPED!
I have too much to say today to justify showing the trailer, but…
Check out the tagline on the poster:
Look up.
Our culture rejoices in looking down.
Our culture rejoices in looking down.
We are, by and large, interested in anger, despair, and down-right bullying these days.
We look down our noses at people who disagree with us.
We look down at people who are poorer or less well off than us.
And I’m sad to say, the Church in America has a bit of a reputation for looking down on those who are outside the faith, who haven’t come in to the fold yet.
We’re more interested in looking down in pessimism, and I’m really sad to say I think that’s infected the church.
Christians are built on hope…wherever we can find it.
Christians are built on hope…wherever we can find it.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, our spiritual health lies at least in part in our ability to look up.
To look up and take notice of what God is doing in our world, both inside and outside the church.
To look up to our role models in the faith, much like our sweet sister Garnet Clark whose life we’ll be celebrating this afternoon.
To look up toward Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith.
And we do it all in a spirit of joy, and rejoicing.
It’s a bit like making sure we’re breathing, to rejoice in hope.
Patient in Affliction
Patient in Affliction
Paul is under no illusions!
There is an underlying assumption that affliction is coming!
There is an underlying assumption that affliction is coming!
The running plan
The running plan
A friend of mine has preyed upon my questionable judgement, and has convinced me to run in the Pittsburgh Half Marathon this year.
I’m not sure he’s still a friend…but!
I also happen to have a spin instructor who is dedicated to helping us meet our goals.
And so when I told him this, he got that smile that only people who enjoy other’s suffering can get…
My coach though has drawn up a training plan, and I’ve been working my way through it slowly.
But when he handed it to me, this plan that is just a calendar with numbers on it, harmless looking enough…he said
You are GOING to have setbacks on this journey.
Be ready for them now.
Affliction isn’t just something that we try our hardest to avoid.
Affliction is a part of the process.
So often I see Christians who think that the real vital sign of their faith is their ability to avoid affliction.
That’s not a vital sign of the faith at all!
Living a life of faith will come with affliction.
You will have hard times.
You will have folks you love betray you.
You will have pain, sadly.
I wish it weren’t true, but it very much is!
The real question is how are you going to respond to the affliction?
The real question is how are you going to respond to the affliction?
The vital sign isn’t how well we can avoid it, it’s what are we going to do to respond to affliction?
Will we let it beat us, or will we be patient in our endurance?
Will we let it get us off course, or will we take a deep breath and find our way again?
Will we use it as a comparative tool against others around us, or will we let it strengthen us for the race ahead?
Our ability to respond to affliction with patience is a bit like blood pressure.
It’s not always going to be low…
But that baseline is pretty important!
Persevere in Prayer
Persevere in Prayer
Like tuning a guitar.
Like tuning a guitar.
I have this guitar over here, and it’s my absolute pride and joy.
I love just about everything about it!
It sounds phenomenal!
It fits perfectly in my hands.
It’s the right color for me!
But…it does NOT want to stay in tune.
Because I value how everyone else is experiencing the music I’m playing, very frequently in the middle of a song, I will have to stop and tune.
Maybe even two or three times in a song.
I just have to keep up with it, to make sure that the guitar is matched up with the other musicians that I’m playing with at any given moment.
Prayer is how we tune our hearts.
Prayer is how we tune our hearts.
Prayer is such a big topic, it could be it’s own sermon series.
Prayer does so many things. But one of the things it does is kind of like tuning our hearts to God’s message.
When I’m praying, I’m thinking about who God is in my life.
When I’m praying for others, I’m inviting the way I view them to line up with who God is.
When I’m praying for myself, I am ultimately asking if my priorities for my life are lined up with God’s priorities for my life.
It’s a way to tune my earthly heart to make sure that my life can play with the heavenly choir.
You’ve got to stay on it!
You’ve got to stay on it!
I don’t know about you, but at least for me my heart is a good bit like that guitar!
It doesn’t want to stay in tune!
It wants to drift in and out.
It wants to run after its own thing.
It has it’s own agenda.
And so we preserver in prayer because we need constant tuning.
We pray for our neighbors, because it tunes our hearts toward their needs.
We pray for ourselves, to tune our hearts toward heavenly priorities.
We pray just to communicate with God, because God’s love has the biggest impact on our hearts and their beating in time with God’s values.
Give Generously
Give Generously
Sure, to the church!
Sure, to the church!
We did indeed have a really good year in 2024 on the budget.
Come to the potluck next week, and I’ll tell you about it if you promise to bring Mac and Cheese!
We also have a few folks left still who haven’t turned in pledge cards for 2025…just saying…
But in fact, it’s not just our giving to the church that serves as a vital sign for us.
Our generosity to the Saints is much bigger than that.
To those who are begging.
To those who are begging.
On my commute to work, there’s a woman who is always standing at the intersection of 51 and 88.
My wife has done a beautiful job of putting together these little bags that we keep in our cars, with bottles of water and fruit cups and some snacks.
And when I don’t have one of those with me, I usually have a couple of bucks that I can pass out the window.
This woman has a sign that always says “Grateful for anything, even just your smiles.”
I wonder how many smiles she really gets?
Or better yet, I wonder how often folks are looking down at her?
I hear, even our brothers and sisters of faith say, “oh, they’re just going to use it on drugs or alcohol or something.”
This passage doesn’t say “Contribute to the needs of the saints, as long as you judge it a worthy cause.”
Jesus didn’t say “Look after the least of these, as long as they’ve got their acts together.
The scriptures don’t impanel us as a jury of folks decisions before we’re generous.
We’re just called to be generous.
What they do with our generosity, that’s on them.
To your wait staff
To your wait staff
I think one of the biggest vital signs I can see in the real world for people of faith is how well we’re tipping our wait staff.
Hospitality to Strangers
Hospitality to Strangers
Our culture is all about walls!
Our culture is all about walls!
Build walls to keep people out.
Build fences to keep our families safe.
Make sure there are state of the art locks on the doors.
What if we risked some security to increase our hospitality?
What if we risked some security to increase our hospitality?
Obviously in this work, we ought to make sure that we’re cautious.
But even just risking the security of not looking silly is a worthwhile risk.
What if we invited someone from the community to our homes for a meal?
What if we opened our homes to those who needed a warm place to sleep?
In fact, some of my friends who are bikepackers just told me about a website called “Warm Showers”
If your house happens to be on a bikepacking route, as mine is, you can open up your house to be a place for one of these bikepackers to have a couch to crash on, a warm shower in the morning, and a meal or two along the way.
Comparatively it costs very very little, but having been one of those guys whose occasionally needed a couch to crash on during one of those trips, it means the world!
And I think this also happens to be one of the vital signs that we forget about.
Again, our culture is pointed very much against this.
The Vitals that Didn’t Make the Cut
The Vitals that Didn’t Make the Cut
Winning arguments
Winning arguments
Judging outsiders
Judging outsiders
Having our “stuff” together.
Having our “stuff” together.
The Beulah Hospital
The Beulah Hospital
It’s been said that a Church ought to see itself as a hospital for sinners.
Jesus even said in Mark 2:17 “When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.””
So in our dedication to health, we can take a little bit of inspiration from our friends in the medical field, can’t we?
Bedside Manner matters
Bedside Manner matters
I was actually just visiting with a friend in the hospital this week.
They called me after they came in with some super scary symptoms, and met with an ER doctor who did very little to ease their fears!
He was gruff.
He was aggressive.
He was cold.
And so obviously, my friend was rather scared.
But then they saw the other doctor, who had the exact same diagnosis and treatment plan, but this doctor
Was kind.
Was patient.
Asked if my friend had any questions.
Assured him that he was in good hands.
The Church should be regularly checking our bedside manner.
Sometimes we’re gruff, aggressive, and cold with each other!
Imagine how someone who needs the healing light of Christ will respond to that!
We need to be mindful of how we speak to each other, both inside and outside the walls of the congregation, so that healing can ultimately begin!
Healing work
Healing work
When you’re in the hospital, about half the time is coming in to relax and rest to get healing.
But I also happen to know that a lot of time there’s work that needs to be done to get the healing you need to get out and get home.
That’s why hospitals have Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Psychiatrists, and other folks who work with us to get us back on our feet and moving again.
I wonder what the work of healing is like here in the Church?
Do we know what the scripture says, or the characiture?
Do we know what the scripture says, or the characiture?
So often when I’m debating with someone, I will hear them refer to scriptures that…don’t really exist.
They’ll say “God helps those who help themselves!”
Or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
Or even “Let go and let God,” which is horrible advice especially if you’re a mountain biker!
We owe it to ourselves to make sure that we know what the scriptures say, and not the general sense of it.
Let’s study it together!
Let’s study it together!
Education Hour
Education Hour
This week we have Joshua’s informational meeting, and truth be told everyone here should go!
But then we’re going to launch in to a series on a book called “Looking Up,” and I hope you’ll join us for that!
Family Night
Family Night
I couldn’t be happier that Family Night is coming back in a couple of weeks!
We’re going to spend three weeks on a video series called “An Introduction to Joy”
And then I think we’ll probably pick out a book of the Bible and do another deep dive on it.
So if you want to help me decide which book that will be, come on by!
Men’s Groups
Men’s Groups
Alex has a phenomenal men’s group going on!
Wednesdays at 7:30 downstairs.
If you want to suck the marrow off the bone of scripture, this is the group for you!
They take longer to work through a book of the Bible than anyone else I’ve ever seen…
And it’s much to their credit for sure!
Women’s Groups
Women’s Groups
I’ve joked that you can’t throw a rock at this Church’s calendar and not hit a woman’s group!
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday Night, Sunday morning with Mom’s Group.
They’re everywhere!
Our study of scripture is to make sure that we are strong enough in it to stand on.
Much like PT in the hospital, sometimes our interactions with Scripture are painful.
Sometimes they challenge us to reconsider our walk in faith.
Sometimes, things that we were absolutely sure were in the Bible are not, and that takes some painful reorganizing of our structures and life plans.
But that pain is a good thing.
It gets us where we need to go in our healing.
Everyone Knows their Roles
Everyone Knows their Roles
I’m always in the way.
I’m always in the way.
I feel like my track record when I’m visiting folks in the hospital is unblemished.
Every time I get to a room, that seems to be the time that every nurse and doctor and PT person is there to check on the patient.
So I feel like I am constantly in the way.
Usually my response is to try to duck out of the way and hide in a corner.
In fact, I have a bump on my head from literally ducking, though not enough, under a TV the last time I was there…
But imagine if I tried to stay out of the way by grabbing a stethoscope and trying to play doctor.
I don’t think any of you would be calling me for those pastoral visits any more!
I don’t have those skills!
And pretending to have them would actually cause way more harm than good.
We shouldn’t pretend to be what we aren’t.
We shouldn’t pretend to be what we aren’t.
We are one body, but many members.
If you don’t have the gift of prophecy, don’t try to fake it! Lean on those who do!
If you are good at teaching, don’t hide that under a bushel basket!
If you don’t have the gift of encouragement, don’t pretend that your crankiness is a worthy stand in!
Instead, let’s focus on what gifts we do have.
If you are a tremendous giver, that’s amazing! Please teach us, so that we can improve that vital sign in our own faith!
If you are an outstanding teacher, that’s great. Can you help us understand what the scriptures really mean?
If you have a story of what God has done in your life (spoiler alert: that’s everyone!) can you share it with us for the building up of the Church and Kingdom?
Any coach or physical trainer will tell you, strengthening the traits you already have is much better work than trying to develop the traits you wish you had.
Let’s make those parts of us healthy, rather than wishing for something else.
The Cliff Hanger
The Cliff Hanger
Training Training Training
Training Training Training
What are we training for?
What are we training for?