Archive for 2020

 

Sermon recap for June 1, 2020:

Title: Better Together

Passage: Ephesians 4:1-16

How?

• Pursue spiritual unity (vs 1-6)
• Utilize spiritual diversity (vs 7-12)
• Grow in spiritual maturity (vs. 13-16)

*Outline adapted from Tony Merida’s book Christ-Centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Ephesians

Thoughts:

I found myself thinking a lot about Pastor Matt’s message Better Together over the last few days.  For a message initially aimed at unifying our local body of Christ at MBC, the larger message of the sermon seems surprisingly appropriate for the events going on in our country right now. Pursue Unity. Utilize diversity. Grow in maturity.  Please bear with me while I try to bring my personal experience to bear on this message.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of Mike’s and my favorite activities is to go estate-saling.  For those who don’t know, going to estate sales is basically like going to a garage sale that encompasses an entire house.  Once, when we were out estate-saling in a very expensive and upscale area of Dallas, we walked into a home, and the woman behind the cash register looked me over. Looked. Me. Over. Have you ever gotten “that look” before?  The look that’s a combination of judgment and suspicion? The look that says, “You don’t belong here.” I suddenly felt very self-conscious. I looked down. I had on an old t-shirt and ratty sweatpants. Definitely not the labels she was used to seeing in this part of Dallas. I tried to shrug it off.  Maybe she was just grouchy and I was reading into the situation. I tried to ignore her gaze as I entered the house and began to look around.

I brought an item up to the register and asked her how much it was.  Her face turned tightened and she accused, “This had a price tag on it. Where’s the price tag?” I shrugged apologetically and left the item with her.  Then I noticed one of her workers following me around the home and watching my every movement.  Was she implying that she thought I was trying to steal something???  Was I being “profiled”???

The color started to rise in my cheeks.  I felt a hot combination of embarrassment and anger. I grabbed Mike’s arm and told him we needed to leave RIGHT NOW.  He didn’t understand, so when we got to the car, I tried to explain my feelings to him.  “Did you hear the way she talked to me???  I think she even had someone follow me around the house!” I remember shaking with anger.  Mike tried to play it off, “Don’t worry about it. What she thinks doesn’t matter.”  But that was little consolation.  It did matter to me.  It mattered because she made a negative assumption about my character and WHO I WAS based on what I was wearing and what I looked like.  The experience left me angry—raging angry.

But here’s the real rub: This is as close as I can get to a personal experience where I suffered prejudice or discrimination. And it is NOTHING like what African Americans and POC (Persons of Color) go through on a regular basis.  I’ve seen first-hand as a teacher how black students are sometimes disciplined more severely than white students.  My daughter’s friend is an African-American student at MIT.  He was stopped and frisked because police thought he was robbing his own dorm room.  The city of Fort Worth watched a young, black woman get shot in her own home by a policeman investigating a potential break-in.  And the nation watched in horror as George Floyd was suffocated to death at the hands of four police officers.  We need the message of “Better Together” now more than ever.  And “Better Together” doesn’t just apply to people in the church—it is how Christ wants us to view our brothers and sisters of different colors.  We need to be better at bringing people of different races together.

So how do we do that?  As Matt says, “Every question is a theological question.” According to rest of Ephesians 4, we must:

• Put away falsehood (v25)
• Speak the truth (v25)
• Be angry and do not sin (v26)
• Do not let the sun go down on our anger (v26)
• Let the thief no longer steal (v28)
• Let no corrupting talk come out of our mouths (v29)
• Do not grieve the Spirit of God (v30)
• Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice (v31)
• Be kind to one another, forgiving one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (v32)

 

Please note that all of these require action.  Paul doesn’t simply say, “Just realize that the truth is important.” We must speak the truth.  We are called to take definitive actions to help promote unity of the body, and I would also submit, the unity of our country.

If we are not POC (People of Color), we must, at a minimum, acknowledge that we have very little shared experience on the topics of prejudice and racism with our African-American brothers and sisters, and we should do all we can to change that narrative.  One way I’ve discovered is to reach out to POC and listen.  Not “listening to respond” as my one friend put it, but “listening to understand.”  She expressed to me, “POC have been trying to explain our hurt and fears to white America for centuries. However, we’ve also stepped back, or even stepped down, to keep the peace–allowing many to step on us. We have allowed minor victories to suffice just because they were victories. However, we didn’t realize that people were still not understanding.  And white America is not used to all this: all this screaming and shouting, all this demanding, all this violence. You would think this not to be true because POC have protested and rioted before, but it soon ceased because someone put a band-aid over a still seeping wound.”

Another friend who is also a POC mentioned these ideas when I asked what we as a church can do to help the current situation.  She wrote:

• Make sure you/they are educating themselves about the issues.
• Look up historic oppressions so you can speak against things that are rooted in hate and ignorance.
• Check yourself for biases about race and see if they are rooted in hatred.
• Evaluate the people you are doing life with and intentionally invite people of color into your life to fellowship with you as believers. We are supposed to be “seeking a person of peace” (Luke 10) and “not forsaking meeting with one another.” That should be a diverse meeting of people (Hebrews 10:25).
• Challenge the people you hear who have biases or say derogatory things to educate themselves on “what is true, what is lovely, what is noble” (Philippians 4:8) about the people who are different from you and celebrate that with them rather than looking for evidence of hateful biases. Remember the big picture– humanity is broken. We ALL have a sin issue & there are sin issues we need to address regardless of race.
• Intentionally patron black (any minority) owned business and share those businesses with friends.
• Challenge officers you know to be intentional about living in the communities they work in our truly serving and buying in the communities they work in, seeking the person of peace in the communities they are serving and protecting so that they know what normal crime is in the area.
• Host community prayer nights for the nation and for race relations; mourn and seek God for wisdom answers and reconciliation.

These are tangible things we as a church can to do to help our community be “Better Together.”  I’ll be bringing even more ideas and resources to you in the future.  Don’t lose hope.  We can help #bethechange that points people to the gospel of Christ.

Noteworthy:

You’ve been waiting for it!  And it has arrived!!!  This Sunday, June 7th, we will be reopening the church for worship services!  We will be a releasing a video with all the details tomorrow, but here is the gist:

We will have 5 options for you to participate in our worship service:

• 8:45am livestream on our YouTube channel
  • This message can then be viewed any time thereafter
• 8:45am Regular Service in the “Sanctinasium”
  • Park in the front lot of the building
  • Enter and exit through the front doors (west entrance) of the building ONLY
• 8:45am Mask Only Service in the Senior High School room.
  • This service will have a pared down worship team (keyboard only) and an emphasis on more traditional songs.
  • Park in the back lot of the building (east/childcare)
  • Enter and exit through the high school doors
• 11am Regular Service in the “Sanctinasium”
  • This week will feature a “Senior Celebration” with a video and tribute marking the graduation of our MBC high school seniors. Graduating seniors include Max Allen, Sara Austin, Madison Birdwell, Emily Bishop, Megan Clay, Ben deDios, Keila Finnestad, Dean Fretwell, Cait Hullett, Emily Morren, Madeline Reynolds, Caleb & Colby Schuelke, John Seimears, Brant Taylor, Ben Toliver, Braeden Vaughan, Alison Wilkins, and Matthew Zavala.  There will be a table in the foyer where you can leave cards for the graduates, if so desired.
  • Park in the front lot
  • Enter and exit through the front doors (west entrance) of the building ONLY
• 11am Family Service in the Middle School Room (upstairs)
  • This service is geared toward families with young children
  • Bring a blanket and sit on the floor with your kids because this service is “wiggle-friendly”
  • Worship will be a mix of children’s choruses and adult worship songs.
  • Activities will encourage movement
  • Sermon will be streamed in (8:45am message) but in the future, there may also be a live “kid-friendly” message presented by Matt, Mike, Zeke, or other MBC member.
  • Park in the back lot of the building (east/childcare)
  • Enter and exit through the main east entrance (childcare doors) ONLY
  • ENTRANCE /EXIT PLAN

We have started earlier to give us time to disinfect between services as per the governor’s guidelines for reopening Texas. I have attached a map Mike created to this email which should help explain things even better for more “visual” people, so check it out!

I apologize for the length of this update.  Believe me, I spent a great deal of time in prayer trying to craft the best and most gracious response to recent events.  I do believe that Jesus is the answer to what the world needs.  We, as believers, just need to do a better job bringing the message to them–the message that we are “Better Together.”

In service to Him and to you,
Heather Hogue

 

Series: Followership over Spectatorship

Title: Follow Me: The Conditions

Review of MBC’s vision for 2020: Pursuing followership over spectatorship by growing as disciples who make disciples.

Implementation:

1. Implementation of a global & local mission team.
2. Equip 75% of MBC partners share the gospel.
3. Start 4 new LIFE Groups with 4 new leaders.
4.  All LIFE groups learn basic subjects of discipleship.
5. Pray at 1:11 pm
   • 1 to share the Gospel with in 2020.
   • 1 to come to faith in Christ in 2020.
   • 1 to personally disciple in 2021.

Passage: Mark 8:27-38

• The Confession, v 27-30 
  • “Who do people say that I am?”
  • “But who do you say that I am?”
• The Correction, v 31-33
  • The Son of Man must suffer (John 3:16)
  • Peter’s rebuke
  • “You’re shooting baskets for the wrong team.”
• The Conditions, v 34
  • Deny himself
  • Take up his cross
  • Follow Me
• The Rationale, v 35-38

Thoughts

I have to ask… Was anyone able to guess the song when Pastor Matt started “Name That Tune” humming on Sunday morning???  I sure wasn’t!  (My advice–Stick to preaching, Matt, and leave the music to Ryan and Zeke!) However, once Matt said it was the song My Life by Billy Joel, I knew exactly the song he meant!  I’ve even sung the lyrics myself along with the radio, “Go ahead with your own life!  Leave me alone!”  That song was a great reminder of what the first condition of following Christ– Deny Yourself–does NOT look like! 

Matt then mentioned, the second condition for following Christ–“Take up your cross” would have been a terribly gruesome metaphor to Jesus’ audience.  Crosses were the ultimate symbol of shame, pain, and disgrace—not pretty trinkets or artwork on t-shirts. Jesus was asking members of his audience to volunteer to take up the horrible object and its implied suffering in order to follow Him.  And as Matt pointed out, this isn’t like how we use it to sometimes refer to a “cross we have to bear.” Taking up your cross refers to the hardships that directly accompany the cost of following Christ.

Matt shared an example of a student who didn’t get into medical school because he revealed during his interview that he wouldn’t perform an abortion because he was a Christian. I’ve also had several instances where I was challenged to “take up my cross” in the workplace.  At one high school where I taught, a student asked me to start a Bible study.  However, when I went to submit a request to meet along with some other paperwork, I was told by an administrator that the school would be unable to offer an activity like that to the student body because it could be construed as favoring a religious organization. (Irony alert!!!  The administrator was a evangelical Christian and former missionary!)

You would think this kind of thing wouldn’t happen in Texas! I knew the law, and I knew that there was nothing in it to support this decision. My guess is that the administrator didn’t want any unnecessary controversy or attention, so the easiest option was to deny us the option of meeting.  I considered letting the matter drop. I was a relatively new teacher at the school, and I knew this might start me out on the wrong foot with the administration.  However, I was reminded of the story of Esther.  Maybe I was called to that school for “such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).  I also remembered Job’s message to his friends, “Though He slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). I went ahead and requested a meeting with the administrator over student clubs and activities knowing that my message might not be well-received.

I went to school a nervous wreck that day, but after school, I presented my case and offered a defense as to why such a gathering would be well within the laws governing separation of church and state. I looked at my administrator and said, “And you need to know that if you deny us the right to meet, I will do everything in my power to see this through–including taking legal action.”  God was gracious that time, and we were allowed to meet, albeit with certain stipulations. I didn’t end up suffering personal loss that time, but I realize it could have gone differently.  “Taking up our cross” can be costly, but it’s required for those who want to follow Christ.

Finally, true followers of Christ need to be willing to submit to the third condition.  We need to be willing to follow Him–even if that means following Him into suffering.  I was talking to a friend today, and we were joking about how it’s not really submission if it’s something you would have done anyway.  True submission comes when we must bend our will to honor someone else in authority—especially if we have, what I like to call, “better ideas.”  Following Christ means submitting to Him and His authority in our lives.  We may think we have a better idea or a better way of doing things, but ultimately God has our best in mind. Romans 8:28 is clear that for those who love Him, He is working out everything for good.  Following Christ is trusting that God isn’t lying to us in this promise.

Noteworthy:

MBC at large:

• Unfortunately, with the forecast of bad weather again for this weekend, the Saturday evening service has been cancelled.
•   Please join us for a live stream of the service on Sunday morning on our YouTube Channel at the normal time of 10:30am.  We are working toward a reopening of the building on June 7th—just in time to celebrate our recent graduates with a rescheduling of our Senior Sunday.  Please remain flexible and give us time to communicate procedures and instructions with you for this reopening.  We have some creative ideas, and we’re looking forward to sharing them!

MBC Students:

• Movie Night is today, May 22 @ 7:00pm.  They will be watching Disney’s Tangled.  The plan is for students to meet at the church, under the covered drive, and watch the movie outside, weather-permitting. However, know that if they need to move the students inside because of rain, they already have a plan that will allow them to follow the social distancing guidelines. Students may also participate in the movie night via Zoom. Also, the Student Ministries Team is looking for homes to host small groups for their Wednesday night meetings over the summer.  If you’re interested in hosting a small group or if you have any questions about the MBC Student Ministry, please contact Zeke, Corbin Wadkins, or Leah Austin (click here). 

MBC Women:

• Just a reminder and invitation for you to join us for Fitness & Fellowship, Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 9am in the main gym. Bring a yoga mat and blocks on Tuesdays.  Bring a yoga mat and hand-weights on Thursdays.  Contact the church office for more information by clicking here.
• The Women’s Summer morning Bible study begins this Wednesday, May 27th and will be held on Zoom from 9:30-11am.  They will be studying The Gift of Knowing Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery by David Benner (available on Amazon for $10). The “Expanded Edition” includes discussion questions. Peggy Arendsee, the group leader, mentioned that this study would be a nice follow-on for ladies coming out of Re:Gen.  Contact her by clicking here for more information.

MBC LIFE groups:

Join Mike Hogue for a study of Amos this Sunday at 6pm on Zoom! 

Scott BeVier’s Sunday school class is studying 1st & 2nd Timothy via Zoom on Sunday mornings at 9am.  

Scott Taillon’s class will be beginning a study of Paul soon.  The guide they are using was written by Jack Kuhatschek and can be purchased on Amazon by clicking here.

Pam Curry’s Sunday morning Zoom group will be starting Jen Wilkin’s study God of the Covenant on Sunday, May 31st. 

There are other groups meeting, too, including Ed Fricke’s class, the Ambassador class, the Reynolds’ LIFE group, the Keener’s LIFE group, YAM(Young Adult Ministry)s, and more!

  Please contact the church office (click here) if you do not belong to a LIFE group and we’ll do out best to get you connected.

Finally, remember the vision we have at MBC for 2020: Pursuing follower-ship over spectator-ship by growing as disciples who make disciples.  Jesus made clear the conditions.  May God give us all the strength to follow Him and the grace to forgive ourselves and others when we fall short.

In service Him and you!
Heather Hogue