Closed For Christmas????

There’s a little media frenzy over the fact that several churches are choosing to close their doors on Christmas day. There are many views to this argument, but it basically looks like this:

Yes, We are closing! When Christmas falls on Sunday very few people come, so rather than mobilize all our volunteers for a minimal turn out, we’re choosing to focus our attention on Christmas Eve services.

No, We are NOT closing! When Christmas falls on Sunday it makes this scared day even more special because it allow us to evangelize entire families.

Some bloggers and Church websites have basically said that the church is in a catch-22 or a damned if they do and damned if they don’t situation. The church has to make a choice either to be open or close.

I want to weigh in with a few thoughts. First let’s keep in mind that THIS is MY blog and MY thoughts and has NO reflection on what any other pastor or church does Christmas morning. So with that said here are just a few thoughts I have about “Closing For Christmas.”

1. Christmas falling on Sunday should be as natural as Easter on Sunday & Thanksgiving on Thursday. Wish it was on Sunday every year!

2. Is the glass half full or half empty? While many may decide not to attend should that determine whether or not we open our doors?

3. Will there be any less need for the church on Sunday, December 25^th? Will there not be hurting, discouraged and depressed people who need to hear the wonderful Christmas story of love, hope, healing and deliverance.

4. When has church been only about numbers? I never want my staff or volunteers to say, we shouldn’t have an event because of numbers. Last, week one person came to the altar crying, give her life to Christ and join the body of Christ – that brought joy to my heart. I didn’t say it was just one.

5. What are we saying to the world when we close our doors? What message is being communicated about the birth of Christ through close doors? The Church has been silence too many times when it should be celebrating and making some noise.

With that said, this year with Christmas Day falling on a Sunday – The Lord’s Day, churches and Christian families will have to “choose this day” whom they are going to serve. Either they will cater to the traditions of a secular Christmas morning and forego church, or make worship on that day primary and traditions secondary.

As for our church and as for me and my house, I suppose we will choose that day to do what we do when Easter falls on a Sunday. We will serve the Lord and celebrate Him at church.

Greater Bethel Church will be open on Sunday, December 25^th this Christmas morning. We’re encouraging our membership:

• To be present before you open presents
• To celebrate the gift before you open a gift
• To give the gift of worship to the Christ-child before you give a gift to your child
• To open your heart to the greatest gift before you open you hand to any other gift
• And come gather around the cradle before you gather around the tree

“Christmas, is Jesus’ Birthday,” my oldest granddaughter says.

Have a Merry Christmas!

God Is Watching Over You

Let me first start by giving a GREAT BIG shoot-out to Greater Bethel Church for a awesome Pastor’s Support Annual Day. Your love and support was uplifting as well as encouraging to Janice & I. Many times people who sit in the pew Sunday after Sunday being encourage never think that the person who stand in the pulpit Sunday after Sunday need encouragement too. Special thanks to the PAC lead by the very vocal & outspoken Ms. Jerrion Cooper “Love you with all my heart.” Finally, to my little/big brother Rev. Ray E. Owens, Pastor of the Macedonia Church of South Bend, Indiana (you can follow him on twitter, blog or church website http://macedoniapastor.blogspot.com/ http://www.macedoniahelps.org/ ) I’m always amazed to watch the growth of a preacher/pastor enormous leap, he was already a passionate & powerful preacher but God took him to another level “proud of you”. Macedonia you have a special gift cherish it, protect it, love it & surround it with prayer.

This has been a very hectic few weeks with final papers due and studying for final grades. Sometime life hits so hard that it causes you to feel down and sometimes even depressed. There are times when life simply doesn’t make sense. During the holiday season with Christmas music, shopping, gifts, & trees, many people aren’t happy. So no matter what you are facing be sure to remember that God’s Got You! God is the Master over winds & waves, sickness & suffering, fear & frustration, pain & problem, troubles & tragedies, disappointments, difficulties, depression, debt, disease, demons & even death.

I want to share one of my favorite passages, Psalm 91:10–11 says "No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways."

Don’t you just sense your Father’s love in these words? Like a mother hen that spreads her wings over her chicks to protect them, God will “cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge”. (Psalm 91:4) So don’t be fearful of accidents, attacks, pains, predicaments, failures, falls, hell-raisers or haters because your heavenly Father loves you and watches over you.

One of the ways He does this is with His angels. God has declared that no evil, plague or accident will befall you or even come near your dwelling “for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways”. When He says “no”, He means “no-thing”! And if He tells His angels to “keep you in all your ways”, it means 24/7 divine protection for you!

My friends, your heavenly Father is watching over you. That is why no evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your dwelling. And He has a host of angels to keep you in all your ways!

Do Babies Go To Heaven

I just recently received a call from a young mother who's 13 month old child whom we had been praying for telling me she had died. After a long pause she asked me, "what happens to my baby, will my baby go to heaven?"

The following is what I've shared with this grieving mother to comfort her.

"What happens to babies who die?" I think they're all saved. In other words, I don't buy the principle that says that children born into "covenant families" are secure, and children born into "non-covenant families" aren't. I don't go there.

My reason for thinking they're all saved is because of the principle in Romans 1 where Paul argues that all people know God, and they are "without excuse" because they do not honor him or glorify him as God.

His argument is that they are without excuse because they know things, as though accountability in the presence of God at the Last Judgment will be based, at least partly, on whether they had access to necessary knowledge.

And God says they've all got access to knowledge, because they can look at the things he has made and see his power and deity. But they suppress that knowledge instead of submitting to it, therefore they're all condemned.

So I ask the question: OK, is the principle being raised there that, if you don't have access to the knowledge that causes you to be held accountable, therefore you will not be accountable? And I think that's the case.

I think babies and imbeciles—that is, those with profound mental disabilities—don't have access to the knowledge that they will be called to account for. Therefore, somehow in some way, God, through Christ, covers these people.

So that, in a nutshell, is why I think all children who die in infancy are elect and will be, through Jesus Christ, saved in ways that I may not know how, as God honors this principle of accountability.

Day 37 of 40 Days of Faith

Today is Day 37 of 40Days of Faith: as I read Philippians 1:18-2:18 it was these words that kept repeating "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Let me place a window so that you can to see God's special message hidden in this passage. When the Apostle Paul originally wrote this letter to the church in the town of Phillipi, the circumstances of his life weren’t exactly ideal. He was in prison - under house arrest in Rome – chained to a Roman soldier as his guard. Paul was a prisoner and yet this entire letter shouts with triumph. It is filled with the words “joy” and “rejoicing”. The Christian experience is meant to be the life and mind of Christ working their way into our lives, whatever our circumstances might be. So re-joy no matter what.

You see, God has a purpose for life – for His glory. For Paul, life was not about getting things, or being happy with our situations. For Paul, life was about pointing others to God. For him life was all about Jesus. It was about giving God the glory for everything. For good times, because they are a blessing. For bad times, too, because God uses them to make us stronger. God has a purpose for each of our lives. We are not floating on a rubber raft in the ocean, just nowhere to go and not knowing how to get there. Life has been described as propping a ladder against a wall, and spending all your years climbing it. Too many people will climb all their lives, only to get to the top and realize they were climbing the wrong wall. God has a purpose for each of us.

Why I'm thankful this Thanksgiving?

I been a little down emotionally this holiday season. Its Thanksgiving as you know and this was my dad's holiday. He would smoke a turkey, cook his famous rice dressing, greens, cabbage, potatoes & serve frozen fruit punch. All the boys & our families would gather around the table talking about old times & watching football. That was tradition in our family on Thanksgiving until two years ago. This year I thought rather than grieving the lost of one tradition I would start a new one. So I've asked my family to make and share a list of the top ten things they are thankful for that year. As a great way to remind us of what is truly important in life.

This is my list.

1. My salvation and relationship with Christ!

2. My wife.

3. My children & grandchildren.

4. My mother & brothers.

5. The faithful members of Greater Bethel Church

6. The awesome staff of volunteers

7. The pulpit God has allowed me to occupy for 20 years .

8. My friends & extended family

9. My health.

10. Opportunities to live, learn, laugh and love.

Happy Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for this year?

Day 23 of 40days of Faith Jesus Prays For Us

Today's reading is John 17: One of the most encouraging experiences as a Christian is to be prayed for by someone else – and not only prayed for but prayed with. When someone prays for you in your presence, something special happens in your heart: you feel warmed and encouraged. There’s a sense of intimacy, both between you and the other person and between you and God. It’s like you’re knocking on heaven’s doors together. It is one of the best ways to build relationships between Christians and one of the surest ways of ensuring unity in the church. It’s pretty hard for division to exist and take hold when people are praying together. Have you had that experience? While we do have to pray for one another, I believe firmly that we ought to pray with one another more.

It is one thing for us to pray for and with one another – to bring our brothers and sisters in Christ before the Lord in prayer – but it is quite another to realize that in Jesus we have someone interceding on our behalf. Do you know that Jesus prays for you? Do you know that he goes to the Father on your behalf and on our behalf? Listen to these words from Hebrews 7: 25: “Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Romans 8: 34 says something very similar: “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.”

Robert McCheyne once said this: “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.” If you have had the experience of someone praying with you – of having someone right next to you, sitting beside you, bringing your concerns and needs before God, I invite you now to imagine Jesus doing exactly that. I want you to close your eyes and to picture yourself sitting with Jesus. I want to you picture him praying for you. As you picture Jesus praying for you, eyes closed, I’m going to read our Scripture passage. Listen to Jesus, as he prays these words. Read John 17.

In this passage, which is Jesus’ final moments with his disciples before being arrested, Jesus prays for his disciples. Knowing that he will be leaving them, praying for them is the best way to prepare them. Jesus prays for three things on our behalf:

1. Jesus’ Prayer for Protection

2. Jesus’ Prayer for Sanctification

3. Jesus’ Prayer for Unification

Tim Tebow's Secret Weapon

Tim Tebow Wins! It’s amazing how we easily count people out. It almost seems as if we want to see people fail, fall & fumble. WE live in a world we love watching train wrecks. But Tim Tebow has defiled all odds. Winning the Heisman trophy, National Championships, being drafted to the NFL, making a team & now winning the starting QB job for the Denver Broncos people are “still hatin.” The winning but not they are calling his winning ugly.

The hatters say ,“Tim Tebow doesn't win pretty. Correction: Tim Tebow wins really, really ugly. He can't make the deep out throw and he doesn’t throw a tight spiral. He doesn't have a proper throwing motion and he doesn't orchestrate the perfect 13-play, 82-yard drive. And, he definitely doesn't have the gaudy numbers we all love from our modern day quarterbacking gems.

But, one thing Tim Tebow does do (and the hate to say it)... is win.

Tebow’s secret weapons…

1 John 4:4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Romans 8:37 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Isaiah 54:1717 No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment 
 You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, 
 And their righteousness is from Me,” 
 Says the LORD

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made prefect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Philippians 4:13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.