Hope Presbyterian Church 140 Denow Road Hope newsletter Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 Whence comes a true and genuine humility, except from a sense of sin. - John Calvin

Volume 8, Issue 3 — September 2015 Telephone: (609) 896-9090 Email [email protected] Pastor’s Corner By Pastor David Rowe Vision Implications: Missional in the Meantime

This is the fourth in a series of newsletter articles on Hope Presbyterian Church’s Vision Statement, found on the inside cover of our bulletin.

As a pastor, I am sometimes asked which writers have blessed me the most, devotionally. Among the top five Upcoming Events: or six on my list is an old Scottish Presbyterian named Samuel Rutherford. His writings have October 17th 11:00am-1:00pm an eternality about them. “Evergreen” is a word that comes to mind. Here is a quote from Fall Brunch for HomeFront one of Rutherford’s letters that could have been written yesterday, instead of in the 1600s: Ministries “The idea of endless and limitless progress and development seems unsatisfying, both Hope Library: Oswald Chambers — Servant of the Most-High God (cont.) philosophically and religiously. A process only finds its meaning in a goal. However far off be By Joseph Beaumont October 23rd 6:30pm-9:00pm the Beatific vision, to see the king in his glory, ‘to know thee and Jesus Christ, whom thou Youth Group Corn Maze Outing hast sent’—this is heaven, and it were a well-spent journey...” But the Lord had other plans for him. Chambers had written, “I shall never go Howell Living History Farm into the ministry until God takes me by the scruff of the neck and throws me Rutherford’s point is that our goal, whatever it is, is everything. Your vision for where you in.” God obliged. October 23rd are going, in other words, shapes your hopes and expectations. For example, the Christian ISI Fellowship Dinner views death in an entirely different way than an unbeliever because our goal, to see the King David McCasland gives a fascinating picture of an amazing servant of the Most in His glory, is different from the rest of the world’s. High, one who in one sense, worked himself to death for Jesus Christ. He lived November 8th, 6:00pm by his firm resolve: “Trust God and do the next thing.” He labored as a prolific Operation Christmas Child Box- Our vision statement works in the same way. Anything we do, “any process” as Rutherford writer of articles, devotions, sermons, Bible studies, and poems. He also taught filling and Potluck Dinner would say, will “only find its meaning in its goal.” What is our goal? Part of the third for many years at the Bible Training College in London, consistently providing statement of our vision statement says that the church is “God’s ministry strategy to the compelling written and verbal insight into deeper spiritual matters for all stu- world. This makes our approach to evangelism and discipleship participatory and not simply dents blessed enough to sit under his teaching. Yet Abandoned to God does pro- declarative.” We don’t merely evangelize or preach or share our faith to see individuals vide a balance, the reminder all readers need when considering “super saints.” come to know Christ, but faith means entering the body of Christ, His church. Faith is not Oswald Chambers had warts too. He battled depression for a time and needed the Holy Spirit’s use of the Bible, Christian only a status; it has a destination: our union with Christ. Our goal at Hope Presbyterian is to poetry, and the fellowship of other believers to lift him out of the depths of despair. be God’s witnesses as we welcome more of His people into His body, the church.

The book paints an excellent portrait of a disciple who “lost his life to find it” (Matthew 16:25) during the horrible World If that is one of our goals, how does that vision give meaning to what we are doing now? War I years, during which Chambers served as a chaplain to British troops, mostly in and near Cairo. Dearly beloved by People sometimes think that if we have two services instead of one or a larger building the soldiers, he was approachable and always available to pray with them and aid them in their walks with the Savior. instead of a smaller one, we will grow. As Rutherford would say, it is the expectation of Never one to adhere to the hackneyed, Chambers approached his chaplaincy with this philosophy: “endless and limitless progress.” But multiple services, no matter how well conceived and larger buildings, no matter how well designed, do not guarantee that the church will grow. “I more and more deprecate the counting of cases and prefer the soaking method of God’s Word, providing an atmos- These adjustments can only allow for growth, but they cannot create it. If we misunderstand phere of prayer and then making a definite issue of will.” that truth, growth will crowd out our mission, our focus on the Gospel. Yet if the church itself, the body of believers, remains God’s missionary strategy, we will indeed grow. He lived selflessly until his very last day, and McCasland uses very little ink in describing Oswald Chambers’ final days on earth; that is how Chambers would have wanted it, for he knew life was about Jesus, not him. We see this as he ignored a Dr. Michael Horton says, “We are not individuals who come together simply for fresh persistent pain in his side, refusing to take a hospital bed a soldier could have used. Though some days later a doctor per- marching orders for transforming ourselves and our culture, but sinners who come together formed a successful appendectomy, a blood clot in the lungs followed, and the faithful servant’s days were numbered. and die and to be made alive in Christ, no longer defined by our individual choices and preferences, but by our incorporation into Christ and His body.” Abandoned to God describes Biddy Chambers as a Proverbs 31 woman. She posthumously published many of Oswald’s works. By 1966, fifty books by Oswald Chambers had been published, but none have had more impact than the 1927 work, In this issue: If that is our vision, even the purpose of our singing in worship, for instance, is not self- My Utmost for His Highest, a collection of Oswald’s daily spiritual writings compiled by Biddy, who wrote the foreword, expression (witnessing to our own piety), but our purpose is to “teach and admonish one which she signed B.C. Hope Youth: 5 to 1 2-3 another in all wisdom” so that “the word of Christ may dwell in [us] richly (Colossians 3:16), and we can [give] thanks to God the Father at all times. . . for everything in the name of Oswald Chambers had a bit of a mystical penchant. Many charismatics like him. In fact, I myself still have my copy of My Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 4:20). We come to invoke the name of our Covenant Lord, to hear Utmost for His Highest given to me by a charismatic brother shortly after my conversion. I read it almost every day. Hope Library: Voices 3-4 His law and receive His forgiveness. Only then are we able to receive the gifts with the Chambers’s appeal is broad, and though a reformed believer will not agree with everything he writes, he does cause the from the Past “Amen!” of faith and repentance, with a heart full of thanksgiving toward God and love reader to think; he moves beyond the superficial WWJD idea. I enthusiastically recommend My Utmost for His Highest and toward our neighbors. (continued —>) Abandoned to God. Hope Newsletter: VOLUME 8, ISSUE 3 Volume , Issue Page 2 Page 3 Pastor’s Corner (continued) Hope Youth: 5 to 1 (continued) By Pastor David Rowe By Pastor Shawn Doud Our growth as a church will then not be so much about seating as about the potential of send- I have been ministering to youth long enough to see several ministry fads come and go and to see ing, not so much quantity of attendees as the quality of disciples, our message not so much my junior high ministry students from the 1990s getting married and having kids! So I’m encour- about cultural connection as about the good news of Jesus. The beatific vision is indeed ever- aged to see a new model emerging that spreads around the ministry and fits with our covenantal green, and if we remain focused on it, whatever growth God gives, we can remain “missional approach to faith development: in the meantime.” A new ratio for youth ministry: 5 to 1. (source: Sticky Faith by Kara Powell, Brad Griffin, and Cheryl Crawford) Five adults to every youth at Hope.

What would it look like for “Billy” to have five adults in his life from his baptism to high school graduation?

1. Billy has a Sunday School teacher who has known him for the last two years. Even after he “graduates” to middle school Sunday School, he sees his teacher in worship and in the halls, and Hope Youth: 5 to 1 he invites her to his baseball game. She has an ongoing role in his life.

By Pastor Shawn Doud 2. Billy has a small group leader he calls Big Mike, who leads a group with him and four other The last few months have been exciting and fruitful in our Family and Youth Discipleship Minis- middle school and high school guys two nights a month. try! 3. Billy is interested in becoming a carpenter. He learns from his mom that Tom is a retired Eighteen to twenty of our youth, together with more than a dozen adults, were vital to minis- homebuilder. Tom offers to teach him AutoCAD and how to operate some important power tering to two neighborhoods, doing the inviting, teaching, singing, painting, and hosting of kids tools. and their parents in our Good News Clubs this summer. 4. Suzanne is an older single woman in our church. She knows Billy’s name and asks him to show Almost a dozen young people from fourth to eleventh grade have come to profess their faith in her the drawings he makes on the bulletin during the sermon. (He can also tell Suzanne the Christ in front of their Hope Church covenant family! three points of the sermon. He can draw AND listen.)

5. One of his parents’ friends, Jim, noticed that Billy looks discouraged. He asks Billy how he “But you will receive power Thirteen senior high youth and their leaders attended the first East Coast Reformed Youth Min- can pray for him. They keep in touch over the next few weeks to see how Jim can continue to “As each has received a gift, when the Holy Spirit has istries Conference, where they were energized and equipped in their faith. They saw one of their pastors screaming like a girl on a swing that dropped almost twenty feet! encourage him. use it to serve one another, come upon you, and you will as good stewards of God’s be my witnesses in Jerusalem Models of Youth Ministry Part 2 of this article will be published on my blog at our website www.hopechurch-nj.org. varied grace.” and in all Judea and Samaria, If you feel that God is calling you to join the ranks of our 5:1 team, come see me any time. and to the end of the earth.” Youth Ministry is about seventy years old. It began with ministries like Youth For Christ and Young Life, parachurch outreaches to teenagers in local public schools. Eventually, churches 1 Peter 4:10 — Acts 1:8 were inspired to implement the methods and energy of these highly engaging models of minis- try. Yet for decades now, the average tenure of a youth ministry professional at a church has been around eighteen months. Why is that? Are they by nature flighty people? Studies are now showing that these models of ministry are not sustainable, and new models are emerging Hope Library: Oswald Chambers — Servant of the Most-High God that show great promise. Two examples of the (thankfully expiring) former models are the By Joseph Beaumont following: Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God by David McCasland opens with Biddy Chambers and four- “Red Bull” model (events and adrenaline): Youth group provides a Jesus-themed jolt every year-old daughter Kathleen standing near high stone walls of a British military cemetery in Old week, with camps or retreats once a winter, once a summer. Youthful leaders, creative and Cairo awaiting the funeral cortege containing the body of forty-three- year old Oswald Chambers. crazy, help kids to “extend the buzz,” stringing events and experiences together to carry them to graduation with positive vibes towards the Gospel and the Christian community. But The day after Oswald’s death, November 18, 1917, Reverend David Lambert wrote in his diary: this energy and enthusiasm doesn’t prepare them well for college or work, where they meet intellectual challenges, keep grueling schedules, struggle to build Christian community, and “The one thing with me most is the passing of O.C. I recall many scenes of the past . . . those often find a different buzz offered on and off campus. Like drinking Red Bull, expect a high marvelous Bible Readings he gave us. And now he is gone. And yet I realize him alive in a marvel- and a crash. ous way . . . as I realize that Paul and Luther and Spurgeon and Moody and the great saints are

Pied Piper (relational): The charismatic leader is a kid magnet. He has musical, athletic and living. So is O.C., in the radiance of His presence.” people skills. Kids are drawn to their leader. He meets with them one on one and hears their deepest struggles and triumphs. They bond with him. He or she is their model of faith. The world had lost an amazingly dedicated man of God, the seventh child of Reverend Clarence Eventually though, they begin to see through their leader and lose their attachment to the Chambers and his wife Hannah of Aberdeen, later of Perth, Scotland. After growing to a teenager church and Christ since the bond they had formed was with their leader and not the broader at the feet of his godly parents, Oswald first seemed destined for a career in art, majoring in that Christian community and the depths of the Gospel. The Pied Piper youth leader burns out field in college for a time. (continued —>) and is disillusioned because he/she cannot connect with every student and cannot be the totality of Christian community and character for each student. (continued —>)

All pictures of Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Virginia, courtesy of Pamela Jo Capone