Christmas Eve and “Facebragging”

Dear Friends,

Leanna and I, on behalf of our entire church and school staff, wish you a blessed Christmas celebration and a wonderful New Year filled with the promise of God’s power, protection, and presence!

You are warmly invited to our special Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, which will last from 5:00-6:00 p.m. this Thursday evening.  There will be nursery care available, and wonderful Christmas music led by Lori Devey and her team.  Our devotional message is “The Majesty of Christmas” and I hope you will plan on joining in the celebration!  This service is usually packed, so you might want to come a bit early!

In November, President Obama and his administration held their first state dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  It was a veritable extravaganza of an evening, with guests ranging from high-ranking politicians to Hollywood celebrities and VIPS.  But as we all know, two uninvited party crashers successfully made it into the party.   Tareq and Michaele Salahi made it past security and entered the White House.  Once at the party, they met and shook hands with President Obama, hugged Vice President Joe Biden, and mingled with other famous people.  They then published their photos on the social networking site, Facebook, and attracted quite a bit of notoriety, which of course, was their purpose.   It turns out that this kind of behavior has a name:  “Facebragging.”  And the Salahis are masters of this new art form.   Investigators later revealed that Tareq and Machaele were also working to achieve a role in the reality television series Real Housewives of D.C., and even had a camera crew documenting their arrival at the White House!

Tareq and Michaele’s story captures America’s dangerous obsession with celebrity and our desire to achieve the “fifteen minutes of fame” we feel we deserve.

Let me tell you something as we close out the year together.  It may be possible to slip past security and crash a lavish White House party uninvited.  It is even possible to come face to face with the most powerful man on earth.  But the Bible speaks of another party, one that will take place in heaven and last for all eternity.  In Revelation 19:9 it says, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!”  No one will ever be able to crash this party!  You must have an invitation, and you must accept the invitation.  The only way to do this is to give your life to Jesus Christ.  Then and only then can you appear face to face with the Lord God Almighty!  This is the purpose of Crosswalk Community Church:  To help people get connected to Jesus so they can participate in this heavenly banquet.   That connection is always only a prayer of faith away.  May the Lord grant us that connection now and always!

Thank you for your continued partnership with Crosswalk Church in helping people get connected to Jesus!

With Christmas joy,

Pastor John

The Decade From Hell?

So proclaimed the cover story of Time magazine!  We’re at the end of the first decade of the 2000s.  So the press and social pendants are reflecting on the past decade.  Well, TIME Magazine has called the first decade of the 2000s, from 2000-2009, the decade from Hell.  We have just lived through the decade from Hell!  Here’s what they say:

Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era. We’re still weeks away from the end of ’09, but it’s not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over.

In a related story, Billboard magazine named Daniel Powter’s hit song from 2006, “Bad Day,” as the decade’s top one-hit wonder!

Of course, there have been other suggestions:  “Era of Misplaced Anxiety,”  “Decade of Disruptions,” and the “Decade of the Unthinkable.”  I just want to share what I like and don’t like about Time’s designation, “The Decade from Hell.”

On the one hand there is something to be said for it.  There certainly are a host of hellish memories:  Of course there was the definitive event, 9/11; the Enron Scandal, which proved to be simply a tip of the iceberg in a decade of financial corruption; two fronts on the war against terrorism; and then there was Abu Ghraib, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Bernie Madoff, the financial collapse and ensuing recession, and many other tragedies.  While these are certainly hellish, of course they are nothing in comparison with what the book of Revelation outlines for us.  Yet I remember so well how President Reagan was mocked by the press for calling the atheistic Soviet Union, which had murdered millions of its own citizens, “an evil empire.”  And more lately President Bush was snickered at for referring to three murderous regimes as “an axis of evil.”  Now the press has decided that there really is a moral base from which we can determine what is good and what is evil, what is heavenly and what is hellish.  In that sense I rejoice with the designation, “The Decade from Hell.”

But the Bible teaches a wonderful doctrine called Providence.  This biblical value says that God is with us always, providing for us and caring for us.  The Bible’s teaching about the future is complicated and deeply nuanced to be sure, but ultimately the message is that the victory over evil has been secured by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.  That means that trouble will never have the last word in this world.  Evil will rear its ugly head, but it will never ultimately triumph.  As we saw last Sunday, the Christmas message is this:  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it”  (John 1:5).  We may go through some hellish realities and some very dark valleys.  But for those who love the Lord, on the other side all is light, all is joy.

Greetings from the Mission Field

Dear Crosswalkers,

This is your fearless pastor reporting once again from his temporary outpost in hot and humid San Antonio , Paraguay . I’m pleased to report that this past week has been filled with blessed ministry opportunities. On Tuesday and Wednesday I was privileged to engage in 4 hours of teaching at the Tacumbu Prison in Ascuncion. Our missionary on the scene, Angel Hernandez, has a fantastic ministry to the inmates there with an organization called Remar International (Remar stands for “Rehabilitation to the Marginalized”). In two overcrowded cellblocks, there are 330 men who have accepted Christ and want to be trained in ministry to the rest of the prison population and to the world if or when they are released from the penitentiary. Angel’s strategy is to intensively train and mentor 20 of the top leaders so they can in turn train others. This biblical strategy has proven effective for many generations (see 2 Timothy 2:2). We had powerful teaching sessions, with the men making new commitments to serve Christ and share Christ. Some of them shared their testimonies. What a joy to see for myself the work God is doing in the hearts and minds of these incarcerated men, and how they want to be God’s instruments even in a very difficult environment. It is appropriate for me to THANK YOU for participating in our Faith Promise missions giving which supports the gospel boldly moving forward to the least, the last, and the lost!

Lord willing, Leanna and I will return home on Friday! I’m very much looking forward to our Christmas sermon series that will begin this Sunday. It is an exciting study from Gospel of John’s version of the Christmas story entitled, “From Eternity to Here!” In addition, we will have missionary Marty Hooper visiting us, fresh from his evangelistic ministry in India . Marty will sing and share, the “Mystery of Christmas” will be revealed, and God’s grace will fill our worship time! This would be a perfect day to invite friends and family to come and experience for themselves the deepest meaning of Christmas!!

Amor en JesuCristo,

Pastor Juan

Christmas Season

Dear Crosswalkers,

Well, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! This Sunday the worship center is decorated, we are featuring an outreach event we’re calling the Christmas Boutique, we will receive nine new members, and we’ll conclude the sermon series “Three Powerful Blessings” by looking at the power of the gift! It will be a great weekend at Crosswalk!

Of course, I am writing from our mission station in the heart of South America, Paraguay, and so I will be preaching at Quatro Mojones. Later this week, I will join our missionary Angel Hernandez and teach at the prison. This will be my first time in the Big House preaching, and will appreciate you remembering our ministry in prayer. Last week, Angel was at the prison ministering when there was an “incident” and several prisoners were beaten with billy clubs in front of him!

This trip is reminding me of the precious importance of family, and also of the great need in the world for the message of Christmas. Can we agree together to leverage the Christmas season for the Kingdom of God? By this I mean that Christmas is a wonderful time to intentionally share our faith and focus on our spiritual values. Perhaps you’ve heard the story of a meeting in hell where three demons bring to Satan a plan for deceiving the human race. The devil carefully pondered the suggestions. The first demon said, “Let’s convince the humans there is no heaven.” But Satan said, “No, God has written eternity in every human heart, they will never believe it.” The second demon came up with a brilliant plan, “Let’s convince the humans there is no hell.” The devil, thinking carefully, said, “No, there is so much pain and suffering on earth, that some people are already expereincing the pangs of hell.” And the second suggestion was therefore rejected. The third demon said, “Let’s convince the humans there is no hurry.” A wry smile came over the devil’s face. “Ahh yes, that will work! That is the strategy we will use.”

The Bible says, “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 10:2). Now is always the best time to share good news with family and friends. Why not invite someone to come to church with you this Sunday?

May the Lord richly bless all your endeavors to shine with the light of Jesus!

Affectionately in Christ,

Pastor John