AWANA Awards Night II

The Awards Ceremony was great. Seeing so many kids being recognized for their hard work was really exciting. I loved seeing so many of the kids who come on the bus being recognized for their achievement.

The youth praise band led us in worship. One of the songs they sang was unfamiliar to me, but I saw how the kids were worshipping and I remembered that the point isn't to pick songs I enjoy, it is to encourage others to worship. I smiled and tried my best to learn the new song.

My hat's off to all of the dedicated workers and especially to Cheryl Wyrick, our leader, who, by the way skipped out on her daughter's labor to be with the kids tonight!

Pastor Noel

Columbine

I just finished the book, Columbine, by Dave Cullen. It tells the story of what really happened at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, when two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold killed twelve students and one teacher and injured many more before committing suicide.

It was a very interesting book… more than you would think, though it is difficult to read because of the very offensive language.

There are many lessons to be learned from this tragic event. People involved in law enforcement, school administration, media, and those responsible for emergency response or security for a large facility should definitely read this book.

I’m not involved in any of those fields, so I read the book as a father of two pre-pre-teens and as a pastor. Here are some of the lessons I learned and a few truths that I was reminded of…

• Media reports of anything beyond the basic facts of a news event are mostly wrong! Most of what you know about the Columbine event is wrong: the background of the killers, the kind of people who were targeted, the motives, the events of the stand-off… With the Columbine tragedy certain wrong information was given by the media in the beginning and even when it was clearly shown to be wrong, the media stuck with it because it was more ‘interesting’ than the truth. It seems every time I am involved in a news event or have some knowledge of what really happened, I am amazed and surprised at how the newspaper reports differ from what really happened.

• Having a two parent home with a stay-at-home mother doesn’t guarantee your kids will turn out great. Parents need to be committed to being involved in their kid’s lives beyond just providing a stable home. Parenting must always be active; never passive.

• Parents should take seriously the warning signs of aberrant behavior. While much of the time there may not be reason for alarm, we should not operate from that assumption. I know from the few suicide cases I’ve been involved with that this truth is too often ignored.

• Having a relationship with Christ really does make a difference in the way we are able to handle tragedy. There really is a peace that passes understanding! The author, while definitely not writing from a Christian perspective, remarked at how very different the reactions were between the Christian parents and the non-Christian parents when the bad news started pouring in.

• In a tragedy, churches should focus on caring for and loving people not on aggressive outreach. The Holy Spirit will draw people to Christ. In the midst of a tragedy, our first response should be love in deed and in word. I believe in evangelism, but the message from the church to the world should be that we love you and Christ loves you, not that we want to take advantage of a difficult situation to ‘sign you up’. If a church doesn’t have a stronger witness and testimony in the community a year after the tragedy, then the church didn’t respond in the right way.

• It is never right to exaggerate or embellish a story to accomplish a good and noble purpose. Some of the great stories of Christian faith that could have come from this event have been lost because well meaning Christians encouraged or embraced known exaggerations, and when the embellishments were proved inaccurate, the whole story lost credibility. God will never bless an untruth, no matter our good intentions.

Pastor Noel

Prayer Requests...

Last week was a challenging week. It wasn't a bad week, just a challenging one. I had two very long days that I don't think I really ever recovered from, several counseling appointments a few of which were heart rending, one day trip to St. Louis, and a few distractions. Sunday was a good day. We had a good service in the morning; the deacons and I did our last day of one-at-a-time Lord's Suppers; and we had two good services in the evening.

I am looking forward to this week. It is starting off well. I got some very good news this morning that I believe is the Lord saying that this is going to be a good week of ministry, full steam ahead...

Here are some things to keep in your prayers...

• I have prospect visits lined up for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Pray for these families.
  
• Donna and the girls and I are praying about doing our first big family mission trip this Summer. We are going to try to make a decision in the next couple of weeks. Donna is working on passports right now, just in case.
• So far this morning, we've had seven people sign up for our April 1 New Member's class! Pray that we will be able to make connections with all of those God is sending our way.
• We have a leadership meeting (council) this Wednesday where we will be considering some upgrades to our youth ministry.
• VBS meetings this week...
• We are making the last preparations for publicizing our Easter services this year. We have a very special presentation the Friday before Easter, and then we will offer our Easter worship service three times on Sunday.

Thanks for the Prayers!
Pastor Noel