Pastor Roy's January 2019 Newsletter Article

Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa

Pastor's Ponderings

Wow, what a last few weeks we've had.  Attendance on Sunday has been great and worship has been a lot of fun.  This last Sunday (Dec. 23) we had the pleasure of having Katelyn and Kaden Clausen along with Grace and Faith Holm singing for us.  Katelyn and her Dad Justin also played accompaniment for them with the piano and guitar.  Jodi and her crew did a wonderful job again with the Christmas Eve Children's program and it's always a joy to see the kids putting on their program.

Gail and I want to thank you all for the incredibly generous gift that you all gave us during the Christmas Eve Program.  We truly thank you and we are truly blessed by all of you each and every day.  Lake City is such a wonderful community and we are so very pleased that God led us here to serve Him and to serve all of you.  God Bless you all!

The Old White Church that burned down.

Moving on though, here we are, on the cusp of another New Year.  A New Year is always a time of looking ahead and reflecting on the future.  It's also a time to look at our current habits and behaviors and to try and correct anything we need to work on... it's a time for New Year Resolutions.  I can remember all too well being a youngster and thinking that I'd never live to see the year 2000, after-all I would be the incredibly old age of 40 if I were to live that long... well, here we are closing in on the year 2019 and the next turn of the Annual Calendar after this will put us into 2020.  There are many times I am stunned when I contemplate that these are the dates often used by the Science-Fiction stories of my youth with tales of mankind with flying cars, going off into Outer Space, and much, much more.  To be honest when I read some of the stories about current scientific research I am reminded of some of these sci-fi stories, and some of the stories that I remember didn't turn out so well for us humans.  For certain, this is an interesting time to be alive, it will be interesting to see what the next twenty years will bring.

What will the next twenty years bring for us as Christians?  Where (what) will the Church be in twenty years... or in forty years?  How can we remain relevant in a culture and world where 'Artificial Intelligence' is growing even faster than the researchers working on it thought it could grow?  Honestly, I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but what I do know (and what should be quite obvious to us all) is that it will be up to the children that we are raising right now to answer these questions.  Are we raising them up with a foundation in the faith that will allow them to figure out how to answer the above queries?  I am always excited to see youngsters in church, and the need to build a foundation for their faith is precisely why I am always happy to see them.  Children are little sponges, they are learning even when we don't realize they are learning... we are always teaching, and we need to remember this and stay attentive to teaching the right thing by how we act, talk, behave, and interact with our Church and fellow Christians.  Are we positive, supportive, forgiving, loving, helpful, attentive, do we attend Church regularly, do we participate in as many Church and Faith-based functions as we are able to (or do we constantly find excuses to do something else?), do we pray, do we read the Bible, what more can we do... think about all of these (and more) and then implement any needed changes into your daily life.

Far too often, when we make decisions about going to church or being involved in church activities (not to mention what we watch on TV or the movies we attend), we're making these decisions based off of our own selfish thinking.  We aren't thinking about our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, or even our great-great-grandchildren.  But the reality is that these behaviors that we model today can and often do affect our descendants for many generations to come.  Even if our children don't immediately follow our example, there may well be (I've seen this over, and over, and over again) a time when they return to their 'roots' and begin to emulate the example(s) set for them by their parents and grandparents. We have an obligation to our offspring and to our Savior to pass along the teachings, heritage, and practice of Christianity.

The Old White Church.  Woodlawn Christian Church in Lake City, IA

These children that we are teaching and raising right now, will be the leadership of the Church, if not in twenty years then in forty years.  We cannot afford to shirk our duty to prepare these youngsters for the task that lies ahead.  As difficult as the times are for us now, it is impossible for us to imagine what our offspring will face in the generations that lie ahead.  Again... remember, that what we are doing today we do not do for ourselves... we are doing all this for our descendants.  This is the same responsibility that laid upon the shoulders of our grandparents, our great-grandparents, and on back farther and farther... I think they perhaps understood this better than we do today.  We as a culture have grown too self-centered, we just want to do what we want to do in order to benefit ourselves.  Those of us that are baby-boomers are of the “if it feels good do it” generation, and sadly the generations that have followed us have become ever more and more self-focused.  Social media has intensified this phenomenon and everyone just wants their 15 seconds of fame.  Let's ask ourselves honestly, where would we be if Christ had been as self-centered... as only do what we want to do, and only looking out for 'number one' as most of us are today.

The Old White Church burning

Where would we be without the sacrificial mindset of Jesus who was and is the Christ?  I don't think you really want to be there... then ask yourself where will our great-grandchildren be if we don't step up to the plate every-time it's our turn at bat...  Yeah, maybe you've been up to bat a million times already, and maybe you've struck-out every-time you've picked up the bat, maybe you're tired and you'd like to rest... you know, Christ was pretty tired that day too... that day he prepared that place where ultimately you will get to rest.  Are we all so tired that we're not willing to prepare our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to join us in that place of rest?

Leon told me that during the Christmas Eve Program we had 124 folks in attendance, that's a GREAT turn out!  I am so thankful for those folks coming to support these children in what is for them a life-long memory of being involved in Church.  As I said at the beginning of this long article, we've had a great turn out for worship the last two weeks with 88 people this last Sunday and the Sunday before we had 73 in attendance.  Both of these are very good numbers for attendance and God Bless you all!  But................ where were those other 40-50 souls that showed up on Christmas Eve on those two Sundays?  Now, I understand that probably around half were people that were home visiting for Christmas (three of that number were my own family) but even if we say that over half were from out of town... that still leaves far, far too many that aren't regularly involved in Church.  What does their one time (maybe two if they come on Easter too) coming to Church each year teach those kids (their own children, grandchildren, nieces, or nephews most likely) about how important Christ is in their lives and by extension how important He should be it their lives?  Well, it teaches them that He's not really particularly important unless you're involved in a play or a program (or coming to collect Easter eggs)... that's what it teaches them.

Now, I'm more than aware that most of you reading this are not the ones that need to read this... as usual, the minister is preaching to the choir.  But, we can and must continue to work hard to convince others of the great, great, unbelievable value that having a relationship with Christ is and will always be...

Be a blessing to someone today!  
(tell them about Jesus and bring them to Church)

Pastor Roy

The Old White Church building after a rainstorm.