Redeeming Jazz in Gospel Ministry

I’ve always had struggles with preaching the gospel. Sometimes I think about others who have done it so well—the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, Paul, St. Patrick, Billy Graham—and I feel overwhelmed. Maybe it’s because of the way Christianity has been villainized in my lifetime.  Maybe it’s how I was raised.  Maybe I don’t believe enough.  Maybe.

           

I started taking our church jazz group to the local community jazz festival a few years ago with the intent of a being a church that uses their talents to join the community where they are. It has been successful to a degree of friendship, but it hasn’t been overtly evangelical.

           

Last year I played a gospel song for the first time with “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.” After the concert, my next-door neighbor, who is not a church attender, asked me why I seemed so apologetic when I introduced the song.  He thought it was fantastic. That moment was an epiphany to me.

This year we are playing mostly hymn tunes that are fantastically arranged for this medium. We will sing “He Keeps Me Singing” with the chorus line, “ Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know; fills my every longing; keeps me singing as I go.” It’s quite a bold break from the past, and I’m eager to see what will happen.

           

Music philosopher Harold Best summed it up best for me when he said:

“Serving Christ while participating in culture in an elegant and reforming way can mean a thousand things in as many places. It can mean shoveling muck and bringing clean water to a barrio. It can mean writing a new praise chorus for a storefront congregation. It can mean translating the Scripture one more time for one more faraway tribe. It can mean taking old hymns and old ways and breathing new life into them. It can mean preaching simply yet eloquently, fearingly yet sweetly. It can mean praise songs cavorting with hymns, and drums conversing with organ sounds. It can mean complete freedom in the Lord and stupendous discipline finding common ground. It can mean Bach, blues, Monet, street art, child dance and ballet, homiletics and storytelling, barn raisings and homeless shelters, all found within the normal conversation of the believing church. Elegance, for the Christian, is simply a thousand actions washed in the blood and carrying the sweet savor of Jesus' love. It is, above all, the seamless garment of worship and witness.”

I’ll keep you posted on this journey.  Keep us in your prayers as we explore bold and creative ways to redeem culture for the sake of the kingdom.

Richard Hickam

Walking By Faith

Walking by faith is hard.  Every week our technical teams send out our worship services into the unknown.  We have people all over the world who watch our stream, but we really don't know who most of them are.  We broadcast live to 2000 TVs at six campuses of Florida Hospital with no way of knowing who watches and who doesn't.  We have visitors every week in our Worship Center and Worship Cafes.  We have members whose world is falling apart, and we have no idea.  But we walk by faith that the message of hope will reach a needing heart and have an impact.

At least that's what we try to do.  It’s easy to get caught up week to week and wonder if there is anyone even out there, if it even makes a difference.  That's why it was so refreshing last week when I got a series of testimonies from the people at our Winter Park Memorial Hospital Worship Cafes.  Stories of families in crisis who received the hope they needed.  Families united in a time of worship, even though one of them was in the hospital and another was at church.  People who have come to believe in Jesus through our services.

John 4:37 says that "one sows and another reaps."  In evangelism, it is incredibly rare that the same person who sows the seed will also see the harvest.  We each play our own roles, big and small, seen and unseen.  We live by faith that for every story we hear, for every harvest we see, there are others that we will never see.

The same is true in my own life.  I’ve had people who knew I was a Christian even though I never said anything about God, but something about the way I lived my life told them.  We never know when a smile or a simple word of encouragement will make a difference in someone's day.  We may never know the impact of the things we do, but by faith we can know that it makes a difference.  And every now and then, we may even get to hear a story that reminds us that this is true.

Chad Hess

The Wisdom of Maya Angelou

This week I listened to a rebroadcast of NPR’s Diane Rhem Show that revisited an interview with Maya Angelou, who died this week.  As I contemplated what this woman overcame in contrast to the minutiae that I sometimes allow to discourage me, I whispered a prayer asking God to give me just an ounce of the grace to see good, passion to persist, and ability to forgive that this wonderful woman exemplified.

I thought it would be a fitting tribute as well as an inspiration to use this week’s FHC blog to feature just a sampling of the wisdom of Ms. Angelou.

Tami 

"I believe that each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory."

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back."

"You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive."

"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope."

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." 

  

"Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option."

"I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life."

"It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody."

"We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike."

"If you're always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be."

"The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise and most possible."

"Have enough courage to trust love one more time. And always one more time."

"Nothing will work unless you do."

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love."

"The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free."

"Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."

 “Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."

"While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated."

"My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return."

Are You In My Group? by Chad Hess

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group.” “Don’t stop him!” Jesus said. “No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us. If anyone gives you even a cup of water because you belong to the Messiah, I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded.

     Mark 9:38-41

Sadly, after 2000 years, Jesus' disciples struggle with the same problem.  We get caught up on which group a person or ministry belongs to rather than working together toward our common goal.  A remarkably sad example of this happened a few weeks ago.

World Vision USA is one of the largest Christian humanitarian agencies that partners with many churches to provide meals and relief to children all over the world.  Recently, they announced that they would recognize employees in a committed, monogamous homosexual marriage.  In doing so, World Vision was not trying to take a stand on the issue of gay marriage. Rather, they were recognizing that different Christian churches have different views on the issue, and they wanted to be inclusive of all of them (the same way they do with the issue of divorce and other issues).  

The response from Christians was swift and overwhelmingly negative.  According to reports, 10,000 child sponsorships were dropped in response to the decision.  This led World Vision to reverse their decision and issue a public apology.  Ten thousand starving children were abandoned by their sponsors because World Vision was no longer "in their group."

Is it more important that someone is "in our group," or that they are working toward our same goal?  I think Jesus' answer in Mark 9 makes that clear.  So why do we struggle with this so much?  Why do we insist on "recreating the wheel" to duplicate the same ministry someone else is already doing?  Why do we put so much focus on having the same beliefs rather than the same goal?  As Andy McDonald so eloquently asked in last week's blog, why can't we be friends?

There are many reasons, I suppose, and each person's perspective is different.  For me, the shift happened when I stopped putting my religious identity in the set of beliefs I ascribed to and put my religious identity in my relationship with God.  My own beliefs have morphed over time, but that's okay because my beliefs don't define my relationship with God; they simply inform my understanding of who He is.  As with all relationships, my knowledge and understanding of the person will grow and develop.  If I can have flexibility of beliefs for myself, I can certainly extend that to those around me. How about, before we tell others to stop because they're not "in our group," we ask ourselves if they are, indeed, fellow followers of the Messiah.  Because, if we are all working toward the same goal, "I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded."

Chad Hess

What I Learned About Puerto Rico While in Israel by Andy McDonald

Florida Hospital Church is wading into justice ministry.  We aren’t sure exactly what to do or how to do it, but we know there is much injustice in human trafficking and a whole host of injustice in spin off areas related to it.  Of course, like all Christians, we are horrified when one group of people exploit another group. When people are forced into modern day slavery of any kind it should cause us to rise up and resist and seek justice for all. 

My mind has been more focused on seeing the injustice in our world and how we can help.  So on my recent trip to Israel, touring with other Adventist pastors, I had the opportunity for conversations with some new friends.  One of these had formerly served in Puerto Rico, and what I learned from him was a story of unbelievable injustice.

Whenever we manage resources to unduly benefit some while neglecting, depriving or exploiting others, injustice has occurred, and the picture of injustice occurring in Puerto Rico in the Seventh-day Adventist Church exposes a model of resource management causing injustice across much of our denomination.

If the gospel commission is a moral imperative, then our current resource management is immoral and an egregious injustice. “This is what the LORD says: ‘Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.’” Isaiah 56:1.

The responsibility of the denomination is to manage resources for the growth of the kingdom of God, and that growth takes place at local churches.  As former North American Division President, Charles Bradford, put it so well, “There is no church but the local church.” And yet the very critical, frontline, where-the-rubber-meets-the-road, local church is being continually stripped of resources to fund a system of duplication of services and inefficiencies that are creating a system of injustice.

What I learned about Puerto Rico is that it is a tiny territory.  You could literally put 18.7 Puerto Ricos into the State of Florida! Yet in this tiny territory you will discover North Puerto Rico Conference, South Puerto Rico Conference, East Puerto Rico Conference, and West Puerto Rico Conference, and overseeing those four conferences is the Puerto Rican Union Conference!!!

When I heard this, I found it hard to believe, so just this week I researched it in the Seventh-day Adventist Year Book, and it is true! The pastor who shared this with me also shared something I haven’t been able to verify: the Puerto Rican Union Conference recently built a new office for $5million while the college in that union still goes without a church building.

To eat up these kinds of resources, to drain away from the local church funds needed to do ministry, care for widows and orphans, and to serve the people we want to know the love of God is an injustice continued by a system which has created “unjust laws” and continues to “issue oppressive decrees.”

It is not too late to stop the injustice.  Let’s heed Isaiah’s warning and write new just laws, and new decrees that free resources and enable churches to fulfill mission.

Isaiah 10:1 says, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees.”

Andy McDonald