I've been busy finishing up the Awana schedule and getting geared up for Vacation Bible School. But since spring is around the corner, and Easter with it, I found this great resource for parents on how to make Holy Week meaningful for your kids. Take a minute to check it out.  It's worth it!

Making Holy Week Meaningful for Your Kids

As a part of the series of reflections regarding changes that have happened through the decades of ministry as I look back on many my years, there has been a major philosophical change in the attitude of our culture. When our nation was founded the underlying premise was that man was basically flawed and he needed to rely on his creator for wisdom and guidance in managing the affairs of society. Built into the system were guidelines that allowed man to pursue his destiny without interference of those responsible to govern that culture. Our founders learned from the corrupted practices in former European cultures.

Wherein there was much reliance on a higher wisdom that came from his creator, I have seen a definite shift that elevates man himself to that position, thinking that he can solve all of the problems regarding his culture. There is even an attitude that the “intelligent” leaders of our society know what is best and can manage the affairs of the rest. We have seen this especially with our present administration. It has been labeled as the “progressive movement.”

But that totally contradicts the Bible and it denies the whole purpose for which Jesus came to this earth. He came to redeem man from his sinful and selfish nature. It really gets to the bottom of it all which is pride. That is what separated man from God in the first place when he said, “I don’t need you. I can handle life all by myself.” That has resulted in war and crime and corruption. We could go on and on! The Bible is right when it says that “the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.” What we need is a transformation of the heart and reliance upon a higher wisdom that can only come from the one who created mankind in the first place. Let us never forget that we will answer to Him.

A couple of months ago I was driving and a somewhat familiar song came over the radio. It was one of those songs that I’d heard at least 20 times, but it was white noise until this particular day. I wish I could remember what was going on in my life that day that left me in the emotional state that I was in, but whatever it was, it lead me to really hearing this song for the first time.

The song that I was finally hearing is called, “The Motions” by Matthew West. The main lyric in this song that connects with me is this, “I don’t wanna go through the motions, I don’t wanna go one more day without Your all consuming passion inside of me. I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking ‘what if I had given everything’ instead of going through the motions.”

One of the unfortunate consequences of serving in ministry is that my relationship with Christ can become something I’m doing as part of my list of things to do, because after all, it’s my job to love and serve Christ. You could say I’m a professional Christian.

So here is why this song connects with me so well. I don’t want my relationship with Christ to be seen as some guy who is sitting behind a desk, sipping a coke, eating a donut, preparing a video, and writing a lesson for a group of people who won’t remember anything I do or say past Friday. That is not why I’m in ministry and that is not why I’m a follower of Christ. I don’t want to just go through the motions of ministry without the passion of Christ burning in my heart and the passion of ministry burning in my gut (sometimes literally burning in my gut after eating some of the food that we serve in youth ministry). It’s one of my greatest desires to be able to look back at my life and be able to say that I left it all on the field, I have nothing left, I served, loved, gave, followed, and lead in Christ passionately. I want to be one of the people that returns a harvest back to Christ so that I will be able to hear my savior say, “Well done good and faithful servant,” instead of, “nice job but why did you not…”

Here’s the bottom line, I don’t want to go through the motions, but I want to have a passion for Christ and have Christ’s passion consuming me. How about you?

In a time when our world is growing in its skepticism about everything, especially faith in God, I find myself needing go back to the core reasons why I, Blair Hayward, believe in and follow Jesus Christ. So, I thought I would lay it out for you hoping you will find this to be an encouragement today.

Here are my four main reasons as to why I am, and remain, a Christian:
1. I believe in Jesus Christ because He changed my life: I keep coming back to the fact that I was not looking to become a Christian or to believe in God. Although I was interested in being a good person and having others like me, I was completely ignorant of what it meant to be a Christian. God saw fit to seek after me and show me who He is. I know that personal experience is subjective and doesn’t carry much weight with those who want concrete answers, but the fact remains that there is a major difference in the focus and character of my life from before I surrendered my life to Christ, to after. Following Jesus has changed my life from confusion to purpose, from bondage to sin to spiritual freedom, and from lostness to a soul-level peace.

2. I believe in Jesus Christ because He fulfilled prophecy: There are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that Jesus fulfilled in his first coming. That is astounding to me! Think of it, hundreds and even thousands of years before Jesus was born, precise predictions were made about His birth, life, death, and resurrection. Some of the prophecies which I find amazing are Isaiah 9:6-7 and Micah 5:2 which speak of Jesus' birth and birthplace, and Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and Psalm 22 which describe with incredible detail the crucifixion of Jesus and its meaning. The clincher for me is what the Bible says of Jesus in Luke 24:27, 44-47 “27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself… 44 He said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ 45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.’” I really would have liked to have been there when Jesus took his followers through the Old Testament and showed them exactly where it spoke about Him.

3. I believe in Jesus Christ because He rose from the dead: On numerous occasions Jesus predicted He would be arrested, tried, beaten, executed, laid in a tomb, and three days later, rise from the dead (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34). AND HE DID IT (Mark 16:6-7)! No one…I repeat…no one else has ever accomplished such a task. In fact, Jesus told the Pharisees that His resurrection from the dead is the sign proving Him to be the Son of God (Matthew 12:39-40). I am trusting my salvation and eternal life to a living Savior.

4. I believe in Jesus Christ because He changed His disciples’ lives: This comes back to my first reason. The disciples, like me, were not looking to change the world. In fact their hope of Jesus being the Messiah of God was pulverized after He was arrested and crucified. They deserted Him and hid themselves away from the authorities (Mark 14:50; John 20:19). But what really gets me is that they went from being scaredy cats, to bold lions for God in the very city where Jesus was crucified! So what happened? See reason number three. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead, appeared to His disciples on numerous occasions, and taught them about the Kingdom of God before ascending to heaven is why their lives changed so dramatically. Tradition says that all but one (John) of the 11 apostles were martyred for their faith in Christ. Would they really be capable of maintaining a lie for all those years? Would they really be willing to die for something they knew to be false? I think not.

These are the main reasons I follow Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. What are yours?

Each year at The Chapel, I lead a new believer’s small group starting in the Fall. But this year I did something different. Back in July we hosted a conference with Dale Ratzlaff, a former Seventh Day Adventist Pastor and leader who left the SDA church, as well as Richard and Colleen Tinker who serve with Life Assurance Ministries. The Tinkers publish the great quarterly magazine called “Proclamation.” Also at the conference were several other apologists.

As a result of this conference, Lisa and I are hosting a Bible Study in our home for those who are transitioning out of Adventism. One couple from our church also comes, wanting to learn more about the differences between the SDA church and what we believe as evangelicals. Carolyn Macomber, who placed her faith in Christ alone for her salvation in July of 2008 and was baptized in the summer of 2009, leads the group. Carolyn had deep roots in the Adventist church, even serving as an associate pastor. My role is that of “resident theologian” which sounds bigger than it is. My purpose is to encourage those growing in their walk with the Lord with the truth in Scripture. We discuss doctrinal and other differences between Adventism and the evangelical position as we study Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Also in our group is a couple who has made the break from Adventism and is coming to the Chapel. The fourth member, who is also coming to The Chapel, recently made that same break from Adventism. The night of our second study she prayed, trusting the Lord as her Savior, knowing that He paid the full price for her sins through His death on the cross. One key difference with Adventism is the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ’s atonement, that salvation is the work of Jesus and Him alone.

Each week a lot of unraveling takes place as God ministers in our midst. Those who have left Adventism need to take off what they have been taught, especially the false teachings of their prophetess Ellen G. White. In our group we have those “aha” moments when the truth of God’s Word clicks in. One week we looked at the doctrine of the Trinity. We talked about the purpose of Christ’s coming to earth as God in flesh. For one of our members, the “aha’ moment was, “Jesus Christ didn’t come JUST to be our example. He came to be our Redeemer.”

We hope our small group will grow in the months ahead. If you have Adventist friends who are questioning what they believe and would like to try our Bible Study group, my recommendation is for you to come with them to the study. If you think this is a possibility, please give me a call first.

Kids are growing up faster today than any time in the past. How can we in ministry stay ahead of the 8-ball without sinking into the pocket? When searching into curriculum, do we go for the modern, high-tech, action-packed, lively-jump-off-your seat-programs that we think will attract the busy, uninterested child? Or do we stick to the basics we learned from years gone by, maintaining a calm and quiet environment, limiting activities, frowning upon interaction, and using old colorless resources?

Children’s Ministry magazines flow over with brightly colored ads describing what they think will work best for our church. Such names like: Elevate Jr. (“Each lesson brings Biblically-driven, creative teaching elements to your preschool classrooms…”), Highvoltage (“graphic art for promotions, mpeg-1 video files, PowerPoint games and slides, weekly sound effects…”) or River’s Edge (“multi-sensory, practical, attention grabbing, flexible, interactive and new!...”), to name just a few.

Thankfully, The Chapel has thought through our purpose which provides a foundation to work from: “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:8). In our Children’s Ministry department that statement is applied to our ministry: “Our purpose is to assist parents in the study of Jesus Christ, leading to salvation, a personal devotional time, spiritual growth, daily application of God’s Word to their lives, and evangelism; through sound Biblical teaching and Christians who will pray with and for our children.”

Paul writes in the book of II Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness...” It is our responsibility to: 1. teach sound doctrine and 2. find programs that bring God’s word alive, making it applicable to children’s lives. The methods may change to meet the needs of each age group, but the foundation will remain the same. Trends will continue to come and go but as Jesus says in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

Where do we go from here? We can have a program that is biblically sound through Bible stories and verses, and that brings it to life through drama, colorful props, questions that provoke understanding, hands on reinforcement of truths through crafts, and music that praises God and His works. We can only do this in God’s strength and His leading through the Holy Spirit. Join with us in prayer as we plan, pray, and pursue different avenues of teaching.

Time moves so swiftly! I’m sure you have heard it before. But for those of us who come to the later time of life and are able to look back, it literally has flown by. Now that I can look back and see things from a different perspective, especially as a pastor, I have noticed many changes in our culture that are rather alarming.

One of the grave concerns in this post-modern culture is that there are no absolutes regarding life. Everything has become “relative.” Each person wants to do their own thing and it is all right as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. This philosophy leaves a society without any roots or foundation on which to build meaning and purpose and I see a culture that has no direction or fulfillment. We have lost our way and have become so self absorbed. Life, in a secularist humanistic culture replaces God with self and believes that man can solve the problems of the world. But look around us and see that our world is in worse shape than it has ever been.

The answer is not found within us but in our commitment to a greater cause beyond us. We have found that we are our worst enemy. That greater cause is only found in the one who created man in the first place. The great philosopher, Paschal, of many centuries ago said, “God has placed with man a spiritual vacuum that only He himself can fill. Man has tried to fill that vacuum with so many other things and has come up empty every time.”

I believe that answer to the mess that man has made of our culture is to fill that void by placing our lives in God through Jesus Christ who came to “give us life and have it abundantly.”

I saw it happen again on a recent Sunday morning. If you’re not looking for it, you won’t notice it, but when you understand it, it will make you smile. A couple at The Chapel recently dedicated their child to the Lord. After the service two other couples came up to congratulate and talk with them. Who were these other two couples? Friends. How did they become friends? They met in their Small Group.

At The Chapel we are aiming for this goal: growing committed followers of Jesus Christ. One of the ways that people grow as a committed follower of Jesus Christ is by belonging in relationships with one another. When God made people He hard-wired us for relationships, just as He in His three-in-one nature is relational. So, at The Chapel we have two main groups for people to grow in this area of belonging to one another: Adult Bible Fellowships (ABFs) and Small Groups. Although ABFs offer a place for us to relate with one another, Small Groups are the environment where we want deeper intimacy in relationships to take place.

On October 24, a group of five of us from The Chapel, attended Willow Creek’s Group Life Conference simulcast at the First Church of God in St. Joseph. It was a very valuable day, learning from different speakers who taught us about small groups and how to improve our leadership. Here are some of the key lessons I learned at this conference:

• Small Groups need to be a safe place to be authentic: If we are going to experience growth in our relationship with God and others, we have to be authentic. If we are going to feel comfortable sharing the hidden parts of our lives, we have to feel safe. This is why one of the key elements in our Small Groups at The Chapel is confidentiality. I have to be assured that what I share in the group will be met with grace and will stay in the group.
• Life change happens in Small Group relationships: Andy Stanley brought this point out in his talk about why he believes in Small Groups. He said that the greatest potential for life change to happen occurs when people sit in circles, rather than in rows. The large worship service is a necessary contributor to our spiritual growth. In it, we sit in rows facing the Pastor whose job is to show us the face of God. But we also need the face to face interaction with each other in Small Groups.

God is doing great things through our existing Small Groups as people spend time together studying the Bible, sharing with, caring for, and praying for one another. One of the results is that our large church begins to shrink when you connect with others on Sunday mornings because you have connected with them in your Small Group during the week.

We’d like to have more groups for people to experience this core value of belonging in relationships with one another. Contact me if you are interested in being in a Small Group, or learning more about being a Small Group leader at The Chapel.

In Christ,

I have a thought that has been running around in my head for a couple of years now. It’s not a complicated thought nor is it profound, however, I think that if this thought were something that Christian communities practiced regularly, it would change the face of Christianity.

The thought starts with this: I have done many stupid things in my life. There is seldom a day that goes by that I don’t do something stupid. Too many times I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth trying to be funny when, in the end, it hurt someone. Too many times I’ve procrastinated on work that I should have already completed. Too many times I’ve made decisions that were not well thought out and they have inconvenienced other people, or even sometimes worse, they have harmed other people. The good news (or at least news that encourages me) is that I’m not alone in doing stupid things. I’ve worked with people long enough to know that pretty much everyone does stuff like this from time to time. So really, my thought is this: if we all do dumb things, why should we be offended, angry, and/or judgmental when other people do the same?

Colossians 3:12-15 (NLT) says, “12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”

How would it change the face of Christian community if this were our banner? If we were to clothe ourselves with mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience? I think one of the hardest character traits to practice is making allowances for each others faults. This is where my thoughts all come together. We all do dumb things and we all want to be shown mercy for the dumb things we do, but sometimes we forget that when other people do these things to us, we also have done things to others. We want to be mad and we deserve to be mad except for the realization that we too have done this to other people or at least something like this.

Lastly, if this were what all Christian communities looked like, I believe it would have a profound effect on evangelism. People would be drawn to our communities and they would seek out the answer as to why the community is such an inviting place…and of course that answer is Jesus.

By the way, I would like to put your mind at ease. The danger in writing something like this is that many people will wonder if I’m speaking of anyone in particular and the answer to that is no. I am not trying to address any certain person or situation. I also am not trying to make a judgment call on our local community here at The Chapel. I believe this is one of the healthiest Christian communities I have ever been a part of. Thank you for letting me serve with you.

As I approach the end of my Sabbatical as well as the end of the year, stepping through the Christmas season, I am very grateful to you, The Chapel, to our elders and staff for this time away from my pastoral routine. I will be finishing up my writing project on Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage, as well as doing some projections on our growth, how to manage growth until we have the next wing completed.

For me, as I would enter November, I would normally be thinking about Christmas, how to rework the birth narratives for December. Then I would be thinking about how to make Christmas Eve special. That is all a normal pressure that every preaching pastor feels. So being on sabbatical this Christmas season, I am so thankful for Pastor Blair as he took on this responsibility to plan out the Christmas series and take on the Christmas Eve Service.

As I look back in my years of ministry, this will be my first Christmas Eve off since 1978, which means I can enjoy the service with Lisa and our daughter Rachel and her husband Joe. (Dan and Allison and grandsons will join us on Christmas day.)

Looking back over the last number of months with our solid staff, it has been tremendous not to have any worries that ministry elements would slip through the cracks. I am greatly thankful for each one who serves this church family. So I want to express my thanks:

To Pastor Blair for his planning and preaching most of the weeks of my sabbatical, for watching over many details.

To Pastor Paul, who with his many years of senior pastorate experience, he is that solid rock for our staff.

To Kent as he has continued to faithfully lead and direct our Sunday morning worship, taking care of our tec needs.

 To Pastor Dan as he uses his gifts in ministry to teens, leaders and parents.

To Cindy and Jan who are great overseers of our Children’s Ministries, which is a huge responsibility.

To Sara Steinke who works behind the scene on our website and e-news letter and helps us in idea development.

To Shirley Hackney and Beth Clark, our administrative assistants, who have continued to keep the flow of the office running smoothly.

As we remember the birth of our Savior and look at a new year, may we stay focused on God’s call in each of our lives, to live for Him, to be committed followers as God directs our steps. Have a wonderful celebration of the Lord’s Birth.

Merry Christmas,