NEWS FROM SANCTUARY –

Attendance: 125 Kids: 6 Offering: $4,084

Congregational meeting results:

1.       Voted unanimously to become an organized Christian Reformed Church congregation as of the October 11, 2007 meeting of Classis Pacific Northwest.

2.       Voted unanimously to call Ben Katt as a Minister of the Word to serve as a Resident in Church Planting. Installation as minister scheduled for Sunday 10/14 in morning worship.

3.       Voted unanimously to call the following as elders: Steve Geelhood, Matt Watrous, Steve Cairns, Torrey Edwards, Kate Reynolds. Steve Geelhood is President of Council. Elders will be installed during morning worship on 10/14.

4.       A quorum of 44 was in attendance meeting was called to order at 11:18 and adjourned in prayer at 11:35.

Monday Night Football – Goofy’s Bar and Grill just north of 85^th on 15^th NW tomorrow night as the Eagles square off with the Redskins.

PRAYERS –

Lord, be with John Murray as he recovers from surgery for a broken hip and be a strength to John Fason as he battles cancer. We pray that both of these men will accept God’s love and salvation in Jesus Christ while there is still time.

Holy Spirit, heal the hearts of the broken hearted who have suffered losses, particularly in broken relationships.

Jesus be near to and give guidance to Thomas and Lorrie as they now await trail in San Diego.

God of Grace we pray  for peace in our world.

Lord, prepare our hearts this Fall to live beyond ourselves and truly connect deeply with our community.

REFLECTIONS ON – Col. 1:1-2 “A God So Big; A God So Small”

I don’t know about you, but I seem to make plans for my life…even for my days. I am sure I know what I want, what I am doing, and sure of where I am going…and somehow…in the heat of living in real time, I forget some of the details…and get seriously derailed..it’s like I’ve got an act but I can’t keep it together.

I recently watched a video clip called “half time”. It’s hysterical and horrifying. It depicts cheer squads at athletic events botching well rehearsed routines. Some are cute, others result in a cheerleader being dropped to the floor or being run over by a football team running on to the field at the start of a game. Such is my life..

Alas…all choreography is tested in the minute details of execution: timing, positioning, attention, balance…and it doesn’t take much to cause a crash that ranges anywhere from amusing to horrifying.

This Fall, we embark on a series in the book of Colossians that we have entitled A GOD SO BIG – A GOD SO SMALL. In this series we will be reconnected to the foundational choreography of life and reminded of the details of executing life. I’m very excited for this adventure.

A little about the letter we call Colossians:

Written way back in about 60AD by the Apostle Paul from prison in Rome.

Colossae was a minor city in a major area known as Phrygia that included cities such as Ephesus, Hierapolis and Laodicea. There’s nothing left of Colossae but a big mound of dirt. It was racked by numerous huge earthquakes.

It was a significant city because it was home to many Christians, a large number of whom were distracted by influences that dulled their vibrant faith in Jesus Christ, or at least, redirected that faith in unproductive ways. We will talk about that more later. But for now, just known that there half time shows was full of crashes.

Because there were social and theological issues at stake in Colossae, Paul is very careful in his writing to be CLEAR, FORTHRIGHT and SENSITIVE. We are going to learn a lot from this document this Fall.

The very opening of this letter is significant. You have your own private copy in front of you and we’ll take a look at how Paul approaches his friends in this ancient city….

From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the holy and faithful in Christ at Colossae. Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

Paul identifies himself as an apostle. Apostle is a Greek word that means “one who is sent”. In other words, Paul is sent by God to the people he serves to love them, care for them, correct them and lead them. And, he is not  afraid to live into this role given him by God.

And, he is not sent alone. He is working from prison, with the help of a gifted and called young friend, named Timothy. Paul is not the only one who thinks he is sent. He is the voice and leading edge of a community of leaders that is sent by God to bring Jesus Christ – all of his love and grace and mercy and truth and justice to SPECIFIC places.

Not unlike Paul, we here at Sanctuary are an apostolic community “sent” into Greenwood and Seattle by JESUS CHRIST to represent HIM and further his KINGDOM and KINGDOM values of love, joy, peace, justice, mercy and truth.

Paul may have some serious theological and social adjustments he wants to achieve in the lives of the believers in Colassae, but he loves them and approaches them with respect  and dignity as refers to them as THE HOLY AND FAITHFUL IN CHRIST.

To be HOLY means to be “set apart”. The Greek word ‘hagios’ carried with it the idea that something or someone quite normal and ordinary could be dedicated to a HIGHER purpose. Right from the get go, Paul reminds his friends that they BELONG TO GOD – that they are his workmanship, set apart for the purpose of glorifying him and advancing the KINGDOM OF GOD “earth as it is in heaven”.

And, even though the Colossian Christians may be thrashing about in theological error, they are still regarded as FAITHFUL by Paul. His faith leads him to embrace others even when they disappoint him. His view of the Character of God in Jesus Christ compels him to claim the very best and bring out the very best in everyone at all times. I love this about Paul.

And, Paul reminds all of his readers that they are IN CHRIST. Not that ‘Christ is in them’ and they get to shape that how they want, but that they are IN CHRIST, who is shaping them according to His will and his way.

I love this phrase “in Christ” that is used over 160 times in the New Testament, mostly by Paul. It carries deep meaning. To be in Christ is the ultimate metaphor for all Christian believers.

I have made many visits to Young Life’s Malibu Club camp since 1971 when I became a Christian. One of my favorite features of this camp set on a volcanic rock peninsula that creates the opening to the Princess Louisa Inlet is the swimming pool.

A man named Hamilton, who built the camp for movie stars in the 1940’s, felt there had to be a swimming pool for the stars…but there was no ground to dig into. SO…he simply had a pool blasted out of the ancient, basaltic rockbed on the tip of the point of the Malibu Rapids Peninsula.

It’s spectacular! And, it ain’t going NOWHERE. It is cut “in” the very bedrock of the earth. The camp will perish. All the trees around will perish, the mountains will erode. But, the pool is IN MALIBU.

So it is to be IN CHRIST – when you and I understand this correctly, we understand that we are PART OF GOD’S DESIGN AND PLAN FROM THE BEGINNING OF CREATION AND WE  ARE ESTABLISHED AND KEPT IN GOD’S LOVE IN JESUS CHRIST. WE ARE IN CHRIST AND THAT IS INVIOLABLE.

Do you see what a HUGE, MAJESTIC picture of JESUS this creates? This is the entire intention of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. As Ben and I walk through this letter with you from now until Thanksgiving, you will see JESUS LOOMING LARGE again and again. YET, this same JESUS will be presented to as one who knows and cares for us deeply and is RELEVANT AND AVAILABLE TO US even in the small stuff of our lives.

One Bible commentator, named C.F.D. Moule, said of Colossians, “One thing is certain as to the Colossian heresy, it was a doctrine of God and of salvation that cast a cloud over the glory of Jesus Christ.”

You see, the forces of this world that want us to believe in a “squishy” or “ill-defined” spiritual force as the “diversity God or choice” – or the psycho-social forces that want us to elect a world view that calls for “self-determination” invite you and me DAILY to MINIMIZE JESUS … and make him a nice little part of the pie WHEN IN FACT HE IS THE WHOLE PIE. NOT A SLICE…THE WHOLE PIE…THE WHOLE ENCHILADA…however you want to say it.

In his very introduction to this letter, our brother Paul, calls us BACK to the plan, back to the original CHOREAGRAPHY… He opens and frame his entire message to the Colossians with these several words:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

However we define grace and peace…as Christians, we must be sure to remind ourselves that they don’t originate with us. We don’t manufacture our lives and our communities out of our WILLFULNESS, OUR GIFTS, OUR CHARM. Nope. We are products of gifts given us by GOD OUR FATHER. The primary gifts are GRACE and PEACE

Grace comes from the Greek word “charis” which means to be given favor by someone you are beholden to. In other words, Paul invokes the GOOD FAVOR of God upon you and. He is literally praying in his greeting that the recipients of his letter EXPERIENCE THEIR GOOD STANDING WITH GOD.

While grace comes from God, and is God’s GIGANTIC “YES” to us, we creatures of His have the privilege of saying YES back and in living in the power of that grace through prayers, worship, study, fellowship with believers and acts of love in our community that put us at risk and stretch us beyond ourselves.

And, Paul also invokes the PEACE of God. Paul’s concept of peace comes from the Hebrew word, “shalom” which means “wholeness”, “rightness”, “everything in its place and in order”.

Peace is not a static word. While GRACE is the active ingredient in our personal experience of being IN CHRIST, PEACE is the active ingredient in our EXTERNAL, SOCIAL life IN CHRIST.

Peace indicates that we are agents of WHOLENESS and helping establish everything in it’s place. My image of peace is not CALM, but more like a sail properly deployed in 25 knot wind out in the San Juan’s: The strain at every grommet and rope is ENORMOUS…but the SAIL HOLDS and it causes the boat to heel over and cut purposefully and powerfully and swiftly through the deep waters … on toward a sure destination. THIS IS PEACE … not a peace of tranquility…but of meaningful action of real fabric tested by the winds and waves of the day!

This week, as you think of your own life … as you amuse and horrify yourself with your own missteps and crashes…and the craziness you see around you…DRINK deep from even this sparse introduction to Colossians.

DWELL richly on what it means for you to be IN CHRIST. Fill yourself with God’s Good Favor…GRACE…and imagine your life SET to the WIND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT brining the PEACE OF GOD IN CHRIST to all the daily journeys you sail.

Think. Drink. Be … IN CHRIST.

Go out and Make it a GREAT WEEK !!!

Much Love,

Dr. Randy L. Rowland

2854 NW 59th Street

Seattle, WA  98107

USA

206.953.0909

www.sanctuarycrc.org