In this Issue

Letter from Pastor

A Bowl of Soup & A Listening Ear

Coming Key Dates

· Ladies’ Craft Night, July 27th, 6:30pm

· Concert of Prayer, August 5th, 6:30pm

· Mom’s Play Group, August 10th & 24th, 9:15am

· Ladies’ Bible Study, Wednesdays, 9:30am

· Ladies’ Craft Night, August 31st, 6:30pm

Summer Birthdays

· Emma Schwartz, July 3

· Connie Evans, July 5

· Dina Stitt, July 6

· Will Haase, July 6

· Ross Rodriguez, July 7

· Gwen Rodriguez, July 12

· David Bullock, July 15

· Pat Hawkins, July 15

· Cami Nelson, July 28

· Jake Trumbo, July 29

· Zachary Lee, July 29

· Barbara Hampton, July 30

· Lynzi Berg, August 3

· Ellen King, August 7

· Madison McWhorter, Aug 8

· Emile Wijnans, August 14

· Eric Simpson, August 16

· Chelsea Leavell, August 19

· Debbie Pinkley, August 24

· Lynda Hall, August 25

· Carolyn Boyer, August 27

And One More Thing…

“Prepositions and Purpose”

Words, rightly used, mean things.  Which means they’re worth our attention.  If I tell you I have a pair of alligator shoes, you’re likely inferring from that not that I have something for the feet of my alligator but that I have something for my feet made from an alligator.  On the other hand, if I tell you I have a pair of baby shoes, well…you get the idea.  Words mean things and are worth our attention.

Prepositions, though small, are words and mean things as well.  In fact, they can wholly change the meaning of a sentence.  Case in point, the interrelationship of the coming “community groups” and the vision of our church.  You may recall I alluded to the development of this ministry in the last issue of this newsletter.  If I tell you that Christ Presbyterian is becoming “a church with community groups,” you would rightly read that as meaning this will be but one thing among several others.  But if I tell you that Christ Presbyterian is becoming “a church of community groups,” you would rightly read into that as saying that this will something on a whole new level, of great significance, given a high priority by the leadership of the church.  And you would be right.  Indeed, it is the second of those two options that best describes the course we believe the Lord has set us upon.

But why?  What function are these groups to play?  What is their purpose?  Great question!  I’m glad you asked.  If you’ll bear with me, I’ll quote a bit from our Leader’s Manual.  It sets forth four sound reasons for such a ministry and solid goals towards which we can strive.

A place to meet with and experience Jesus Christ in our midst:

The primary goal for the Community Group meeting is to experience Christ Jesus in our midst in his presence and power.  We want Him to be at work by His Spirit ministering to us and through us to one another to the end that people are cared for and encouraged to lead God pleasing lives.  We desire Christ to transform and change our lives as individuals, as small communities, and through us, the larger communities of which we are a part.

A place for community and friendship:

Community can be defined as seeking to share with others what God has made known to you while letting others share with you what they know of him as a means of finding strength, refreshment and instruction for one's own soul. The Scriptures give us numerous commands concerning how we should interact in Community with one another. We are told to encourage one another, serve one another, rejoice and weep with one another, correct, instruct, sing to, build up, accept and love one another. There is no better way to put yourself in a position to fulfill these commands than by becoming part of a Community Group.

These groups also serve as a key way to integrate people who join our community and as a way to keep the leadership aware of the concerns and troubles which face the members of our congregation which might otherwise remain hidden.

A place where gifts are exercised:

The church is sometimes compared to a football stadium where you find 22 people who desperately need a rest and thousands of people who desperately need exercise. Community Groups are a place where spiritual gifts are discovered and exercised within the group itself, within the larger church, and to the world. They are a place where a vision for ministry and service are developed.

A place to discover Christianity:

Community Groups are a place where individuals who are seeking truth can be invited and encouraged to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. In addition, they serve as a place where we can remind one another of our call to share the gospel and pray for those with whom we are sharing good news that God has reconciled himself to us in Jesus Christ.  The claim is sometimes made that small groups can either be used for evangelism or for discipleship, but that they can not do both at the same time.  That has not been our experience.  It is true that if you aim at edification you will probably lose the attention of the non-believers in your midst.  It is also true that if you aim at evangelism, you will eventually bore the believers in your midst.  But those are not our only options.  If we aim at experiencing Christ in our midst, we will find that we are both building up believers and challenging non-believers.

Now, obviously, the Bible does not explicitly command us to organize the ministry of the church in such a way.  However, it does presuppose that a significant relational life exists within the local church and that this relational life forms what we could call “the nervous system” of the body.  And since this does not and cannot happen naturally, we must take steps to cultivate it, doing so with the anticipation that the One who has led us this far will bless even these feeble efforts.

Interested?  Stay tuned…

A Bowl of Soup and a Listening Ear

By Andi Ashworth

Grandma Martha was my first mentor in the ways of hospitality. The home away-from home that she offered my sisters and me during our childhood left an indelible imprint on my mind and heart. The moment I opened the screen door and crossed the threshold into my grandmother’s world, I felt surrounded by caring and comfort. It wasn’t any one thing she did that stirred those feelings, it was more about her presence and the way she cheerfully included me in the all the daily activities of her life. Her little house on B Street in Yuba City, California was the base of operations for service to her husband, children, grandchildren, friends, and community. As she sewed for clients or church mission projects, cooked the daily meals, ran errands or cared for her neighbors, I was welcomed to join her. Conversation flowed naturally in all these settings and she always treated me with dignity, respecting my questions or comments, regardless of my young age.

Her home was a bright spot where my life mattered

Hospitality was a way of life for my grandmother. She valued relationships and kept an open heart and an open door. Her home would never have passed muster in the women’s magazines of our day, where hospitality is so often depicted as perfection: a perfectly appointed home, a perfectly cooked meal, and a perfect evening waiting to unfold. Her house was small. It was cluttered with stacks of papers, fabric pieces, and letters waiting to be answered, but it was cozy and well cared for. And for my sisters and me, it was a bright spot when our own home was often stormy and unpredictable.
Through her simple, ordinary acts of welcome my grandmother showed me that my life mattered, that I was important and dearly loved. And I knew by the life she lived that other people mattered, that relationships were her treasure. I doubt that she was aware of the gifts she was imparting—gifts of comfort, security, and the opportunity to observe a woman’s life lived creatively and in service to others. In her wisdom, Grandma knew that hospitality was not only an occasional, special event. It is an open, welcoming life that communicates the generous, welcoming heart of God.

The church was a powerful example, welcoming and loving others with the incarnated love of Christ

As an adult God brought new teachers across my path to give me further lessons about hospitality. In 1982 I was a young married woman with two small children, considering the truth claims of Christianity for the first time. My husband’s conversion had triggered a spiritual turmoil in my mind and heart, and in the month following I searched for answers to the questions welling up in me like waves, one after another. I read one of the gospel accounts and other books that addressed my questions as they surfaced. And for the first time ever as a family, our little foursome entered a community of worshiping Christians on a Sunday morning. Time spent with those people was part of my coming to believe and know the reality of Jesus.

Chuck and I were a bit raggedy and tattered around the edges, fresh from a year of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous and Al Anon, and the people of Calvary Chapel Sacramento extended to us the love of Christ. They welcomed us into their Sunday worship service and invited us to their houses, to their Bible studies, to meals and conversations. Some of them babysat our children when we were in need. We watched them give practical help inside their community and as time went on, were invited to take our place in service along with them. In so many ways, from the women and the men, we learned what it means to be givers instead of takers. The heart of what they did was to live out God’s calling to be a welcoming people. They didn’t keep their welcome to newcomers safely confined inside the walls of the church building. Instead it spilled over into their homes and the two became intertwined. Those people made a lasting impact on my life. They were a powerful example of the Church being the Church, welcoming and loving strangers with the incarnated love of Christ.

In our own family, our earliest response to the grace and mercy of Jesus was to open our home. Like countless others before us in the history of God’s people, once the light of grace dawns, gratitude is born. Chuck and I knew without a doubt that God had rescued our family and given us a new and good life. The fact that we were still married after such a painful beginning and had a home to live in was evidence of his care, so we wanted to share it. And because hospitality was modeled as a way of life in our first church, it seemed natural.

Our small rental house on 57th Street had green shag carpet, a tiny kitchen, and rooms that were furnished with hand-me-downs. The furniture was sparse, but the shag carpet was plentiful so we opened our doors to host a Bible study and people came. We also began the occasional hosting of out-of-town musicians who came to rehearse and play gigs with my husband. They slept on our couch or on sleeping bags on the floor, and ate cereal with us in the morning. Sometimes Chuck brought co-workers home from the studio to eat with us during a dinner break. And over the years as he traveled the world as a touring artist, he often invited those he met to visit us if they ever found themselves in our area. Many people took him up on the offer and became lifelong friends of our family. In all these ways, as natural extensions of our life, our experience with hospitality grew.

Hospitality has a thousand different looks, because it is a responsibility for us all

For the last twelve years we’ve lived in a remodeled turn-of-the-century country church, which we call the Art House. Over time we’ve lovingly restored this place and it’s here that we continue to learn about hospitality by doing it. In our particular life this means hosting crowds to hear music or a speaker, as well as hosting individuals who need shelter while passing through town on business. It means having a cup of coffee in our living room with someone who needs to talk. And it means occasionally inviting the sound engineer who’s working late in our studio to join us for dinner, so he doesn’t have to eat fast food for the fifth time that week.

Hospitality has a thousand different looks for any one of us. The needs we come across are specific to our work and callings, our geographic locations, and our season of life. But the essential truth is that hospitality is a responsibility for all followers of Jesus, not just the gifted few. Though some may have a greater emphasis in this area as part of a lifework, none of God’s people are exempt. In the New Testament alone there are enough scriptures to indicate that hospitality is integral to following Jesus (Romans 12:13, 1 Timothy 3:2, 1 Timothy 5:10, Hebrews 13:2, Titus 1:8, Matthew 25:35, 1 Peter 4:9). Regardless of what we do for a living, hospitality helps us make the connection that ministry isn’t separate from regular life. Our life is our ministry, our place of service. If we think about hospitality as a way of communicating the welcoming heart of God, we can be that kind of person anywhere—in places of business, in our churches, in our neighborhoods and communities. But home is the place where hospitality moves out of the abstract and into the concrete. Under our own roof is where we do the work of welcoming real people into a real place, and offering the relational connection that people hunger for.

In order to give, we must sometimes retreat

Hospitality does not take place in a perfect world. It takes place in the midst of life’s realities: the offer of a couch to sleep on when there’s no extra bed, having pizza delivered when there’s no time to cook, and, as my own guests might sometimes attest, the moodiness of a stressed out hostess who’s running on empty and terribly in need of grace. When hospitality is practiced regularly, romantic notions of entertaining people in a perfect setting disappear.

There are occasions when an elaborate meal around an artful table is a wonderful way of serving people. A room that’s tended with care and a meal that takes time and skill to prepare is a gift. The lingering conversation, stories told, and memories made, make us more human, more thankful to God for his gifts of beauty, good food, and relationship. Holiday celebrations are important times to welcome strangers. Adding people to our holiday table who have no extended family in the area can make a huge difference in their lives. We can help transform a potentially lonely, empty day by welcoming them into our circle of care.

When hospitality is a way of life, there are also plenty of opportunities to give something simple—a bowl of soup around the kitchen table, a cup of tea and an ear to listen, a home that’s warm and inviting to our children’s friends, including a widowed friend at Sunday lunch.

In all our years of practicing hospitality we’ve learned that in order to continue offering it, there are times to rest from it, times where privacy is absolutely necessary. The heart of hospitality is being available to others, and precisely for that reason it can be draining. Without times of pulling back, our inner resources run dry and our giving becomes strained and shallow. It’s also important to remember the seasonal aspect of hospitality. We can give in different ways at different times of life, according to our circumstances, the demands of other work, our gifts and personalities.

Hospitality isn’t easy. It’s countercultural and transformative.

Finally, hospitality, whether to family, friends, or strangers, cannot be sustained without the strength and grace that only God can give. Recently I was making preparations to host a small group of people for the weekend that I’d never met. The prior week had not been easy and as I prepared the way for my guests, I looked forward to the time, but also felt slightly drained as I anticipated their needs. A grumbling attitude began to emerge and in that state I was drawn back to Jesus with the thought, I can’t do this work of welcoming strangers in my own strength. At the end of myself I prayed: Lord, help me to welcome these people as Christ. Help me to welcome them as if welcoming You. Give me fresh strength and renewed abilities to love. Help me to honor You by honoring those who come. And thank You for the new relationships about to be born.

Hospitality is not easy. It’s done in the midst of a life lived, in the midst of various kinds of work and commitments. And it’s intrusive. For the period of time my guests were with me, my life was wrapped up in theirs and visa versa. But that’s also the reason hospitality is transformative, why it’s truly countercultural in a world where people are isolated, lonely, and hungry for human connection.

Andi Ashworth is a writer, part-time seminary student, and master gardener. She’s the author of Real Love for Real Life: The Art and Work of Caring. Andi partners with her husband Charlie Peacock-Ashworth in the work of the Art House, a 90-year-old renovated country church that serves as the Ashworth’s home as well as their place of business and ministry. They have two grown, married children and one granddaughter. They worship at Christ Community Church in Franklin, TN.