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| Dear Friends,
I have been doing this long enough to know what a September Belltower letter is supposed to be about. It is my time to be a bit of a cheerleader for the start up of Church School, Youth Group, Choir and all of the other fall activities. Unfortunately, as I write this, my head and my heart are still lost in summer!
Part of the problem is that the reality of deadlines requires that I write this before I have had my vacation during the last two weeks of August and so I am not ready to “Think Fall” yet. But a larger part is that I am still thinking about Vacation Bible School and one of the songs in particular, the Donut Song:
Life without God’s love is like a donut,
Like a donut, like a donut;
Life without God’s love is like a donut,
Oh, there’s a hole in the middle of your heart.
Not only is the tune one of those “It’s driving me crazy and I can’t get it out of my mind tunes”, but the truth is one of those “It is so incredibly true that I can’t get it out of my mind truths”! One of the great realities of our faith is that we are all created with – in the words of a Theologian – a “God shaped blank” within us, and what astonishes and saddens me is that so many people whom I know and love continue to wander through life without making any effort to fill that blank, that hole in their lives.
And how do we fill it?
- With Prayer. Are you on the weekly email prayer list? If not, do you take the Prayer List insert home each week and use it as a tool for your prayers?
- With Worship. Are you in a pew every Sunday, allowing God’s word to wash over you and re-adjust your priorities?
- With Service. Have you offered to teach or help with our Children? Can you give of your time to spend time with our teens in the Youth Group? Does the property team need your skill and expertise?
- With Sacrifice. The offering you give each week, is it tied to the blessings that you have received from God? Do you know what percent of your income you are giving, compared with God’s demand for 10%? How would you feel trying to explain the gap to God?
- With Friendship. Do you slip in and out of worship or do you look for the chance to stop and talk to others? Do you make people feel welcome or are you more interested in letting others make you welcome? Certainly, as we have grown, we have learned that everyone can’t know everyone, but we have also learned that everyone can find someone. Are you looking?
September is the start up time in our culture, the time to stretch and try new things and I hope – beginning with the Church Picnic on the 7th – that we all try to fill the blank in our lives with new experiences of Prayer, Worship, Service, Sacrifice and Friendship, for as we do we find that God fills the hole in our hearts with love.
Shalom,
Jack
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