Word on the Street

You have access to Grace Avenue in two new ways right at your fingertips and you may not even realize it. One of the great challenges for a church like ours is to make the great content of Grace Avenue accessible, mobile and able to keep up with people on the go. These new tools are no longer dreams. They are ready and available for download today.

The first is a wonderful new recording project just in time for the season. It is called "Christmas on Grace Avenue" and it features Laurie Hanson Roberts, The Grace Avenue Band and the Grace Avenue Adult Choir. They perform traditional Christmas songs as well as music that unique to Grace Avenue. One of the songs is a beautiful original piece entitled: "Speak" composed and arranged by Laurie and Doug Cuny.

When the project was in the production phase a decision was made to make it available in such a way that the largest number of people could enjoy it. "Christmas on Grace Avenue" is available on iTunes and Android Market. You can find it by searching for "Grace Avenue Band". Or you can CLICK HERE to purchase through our website. It is a great way to get in the spirit of the season.

Also now available is the Grace Avenue app. It is available for your smartphone or tablet device. It has the most recent sermons, information, and links to everything Grace Avenue. Traveling and want to see and hear a recent sermon? Go to your Grace Avenue app. Need to sign up for an upcoming Grace Avenue event? Go to your Grace Avenue app. Forget your offering last week and want to make a gift online? Go to your Grace Avenue app. The app is free and can be downloaded at the in the Apple App Store or Android Market. Simply search "Grace Avenue".

I want to thank Clint Allen and our Communications Department for the great way in which they are making Grace Avenue; "Not a location, but a way of life."

 

Word on the Street

Does the current representation of Christmas really work for us anymore? Retailers push Christmas earlier in the calendar every year. We have to be guarded about what we are celebrating, the greetings we give, the gifts we share; even the words we use are in dispute. Add to this the raw emotions of unrealistic expectations, unrealized wishes and uncertain prospects and it feels like the Christmas Machine we have created is displaying a sign which reads "Out of Order".

In the spirit of the lectionary, Advent begins a new Gospel cycle with a focus on the Gospel of Luke. In Luke 1:3 the Gospel writer expresses his desire to write an "orderly account" of Jesus' birth, ministry, death and resurrection. His "orderly account" is both a matter of sequence and priority. It is about both chronos and kairos time. In other words, Advent is a time to get things back in their proper order and remember that God's plan is much more fulfilling than ours.

Join us for Worship this week as we begins our sermon series: "Christmas Out of Order."

Word on the Street

Thanksgiving may be our best holiday when it comes to simply being together with others. The great feast itself is normally accompanied by pre-feast appetizers and after-feast second helpings and leftovers. In reality the food is simply garnish for the greater experience of fellowship with family and friends.

The early Christians understood the concept of simply being together as loved ones. They called it Koinonia. We translate the word "fellowship". Fellowship is another Godly pathway to contentment. Instead of being pursued by happiness, we can choose the gracious gift of being together.

Robert Kriegel is the author of the book; If IT Ain't Broke...Break IT! In it he writes:

"What often goes missing in the bumper-sticker, The One Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins philosophy of life are considerations of the cost of consumption. Not just the initial down-payment costs, but the subsequent emotional, family and psychological costs.

The greatest irony in the pursuit of the most toys is that it inevitably requires the most time to get them, leaving the least time to use them. Pollster Lou Harris has found that people have an average 32 percent less leisure time than they did a decade ago.

With there being only so many hours in the day, something has to give. Consequently, the dream car has been parked so long it's used more air in the tires than gas in the tank. The country house for weekend getaways may as well be in another country. The two-week ski trip to Europe has been delayed for the third winter. And the treasured wooden skiff hasn't touched anything wet in eight months. Blessed are the toys for they shall inherit the...dust!"

I pray your Thanksgiving is a feast of great fellowship.

Word on the Street

The election is finally over. Clearly the country is decisively split. In spite of our differences, however God is still God and God is still good. The sun still came up on Wednesday regardless of how you or anyone else voted on Tuesday. Now is not the time for victorious gloating or sour grape bitterness. I am astounded at some of the unholy and unhelpful reactions I have read on social media. Instead we would do well to heed the time honored words of our Methodist Founder John Wesley who in 1774 said:

"I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them
1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy
2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and
3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side."

 

The Apostle Paul wrote: "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us." (II Corinthians 5: 16-20)

 

How are you functioning as Christ's Ambassador this week?

 

Word on the Street

One of my favorite avocations is photography. I especially enjoy taking pictures at church events. This last Sunday night I had a great time being on the other side of the lens during our Annual Fall Festival and Trunk-or-Treating event.

One of my problems, however, is that I get these great pictures but I am never sure exactly how to share them with a wider audience. Our wonderful Communications Staff has come up with a solution that we would like to try:

CLICK HERE to go to the on-line photo album from the Fall Festival. Password for the private album is "fallfest2012".

There you will find all the pictures that I took at the Fall Festival. In following this procedure we are asking a couple of things from you in order to respect everyone's participation.

1. If you do not want a picture of you or one of your family members to appear on the site. Please email us at Kime@graceavenue.org and we will take it down immediately.
2. We ask that you share via download, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. only those pictures that are of you or your family OR you have received approval from someone else to share.

Following these simple steps we believe we can share these fun photos with our church family. I had a great time taking them. I hope you have a great time viewing them. There are certainly a great indication of the joy we share as a church family.

Word on the Street

This past weekend I attended three very different worship experiences. Most weekends I attend four unique worship services at Grace Avenue but this was different in that I did not lead at any of the services I attended. I came away renewed by each experience.

The first worship service was Saturday evening in Ennis, TX. It was the wedding of our Co-Youth Minister Christopher Vaughan and his beautiful bride Caitlin. Often we forget that a marriage ceremony, in the Christian context, is first of all a service of worship. Christopher and Caitlin did not forget. Instead they chose to honor God and begin their life together with prayer and praise. Dr. Jim Moore did a beautiful job of leading the service and the most touching part for me came when we all walked to the front of the sanctuary and were served Holy Communion by the bride and groom.

Sunday morning at 9:09 am (that is the starting time, not the time I arrived just in case you were wondering) I attended a new worship experience at St. Andrew UMC called The Well. It too was prayer and praise but with an ultra contemporary style. Those who led the worship were all in their 20's and their passion for their faith in Jesus was extremely evident. Although different from what I am accustomed to, I felt very much welcomed and in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Rev. Arthur Jones preached a terrific sermon called "Storage Wars: the battle for our hearts" in which he spoke about the passage from Matthew 6:21 which says "where your treasure is there will your heart be also." Yes friends, even the ultra contemporary talk about stewardship and the proper uses of God's resources including money in church. I was blessed by the whole experience.

By 11:00 am I was back home; at Grace Avenue. Here I was blessed to be involved in the baptism of an eight month old child. Then I was able to sit where you sit, sing where you sing and pray where you pray. It was an amazing experience. Joe Stobaugh's sermon from Job about the presence and wisdom of God brought it all together for me.

It reminded me that every week, actually every day, God is worshipped in a variety of styles, languages and places. We would do well to remember that the Lord's Prayer does not begin with the words: "My Father" but rather, "Our Father". I thank God that we can express our love for God in so many ways.

 

Where and how will you be expressing your love for God this week?

Word on the Street

Do you ever find yourself wishing you could trade places with someone else? It is easy sometimes to look out on the lives of others and declare: "Well sure I could do what they do if I had what they have." With such beliefs, envy and jealously soon creep into our lives. We become bitter and believe that the inequity of life is some kind of cosmic cruelty toward us.

At other times we count our blessings on the troubles of others. We say; "Life is not all I want it to be but at least I'm not having the problems of some others I know." With this approach we often become fatalistic. We wonder when will it be our turn to experience misery and suffering.

 

The bottom line is that we cannot live someone else's life. This is why Jesus taught us not to judge others (Matthew 7: 1-5) and to "Seek first the Kingdom of God." (Matthew 6:33). We must be faithful to the course that God has charted for us.

 

When Albert Einstein was making the rounds of the speaker's circuit, he usually found himself eagerly longing to get back to his laboratory work. One night, while driving to yet another dinner, Einstein mentioned to his chauffeur (a man who somewhat resembled Einstein in looks and manner) that he was tired of speechmaking.

"I have an idea, boss," his chauffeur said. "I've heard you give this speech so many times, I'll bet I could give it for you."

Einstein laughed loudly and said, "Why not? Let's do it!"

When they arrived at the dinner, Einstein donned the chauffeur's cap and jacket and sat in the back of the room. The chauffeur gave a beautiful rendition of Einstein's speech and even answered a few questions expertly.

Then a supremely pompous professor asked an extremely esoteric question about antimatter formation, digressing here and there to let everyone in the audience know that he was nobody's fool.

Without missing a beat, the chauffeur fixed the professor with a steely stare and said, "Sir, the answer to that question is so simple that I will let my chauffeur, who is sitting in the back, answer it for me."

Who's life are you trying to live this week?