From Sampler to Sower

I really don’t intend for this to become a series, but there’s lots of cool stuff happening in Middletown, and I just can’t help but celebrate some of the great people involved in these huge successes.

Yesterday, my family attended the Luray  Harvest Festival, affectionately known as “Luray Day.”  But to fully appreciate what that means, we need to give you some back story.

First, there’s the town.  Luray is officially a “unincorporated community” in north central Henry County, in Indiana.  In other words, it’s a road, along which you can find about ten houses and one small church.  And just outside town there’s a 600 acre gravel pit.  That’s about it.  You can take a virtual tour of the town using Google’s Streetview.  (That’s right, streetview has even been to Luray.)

Back in it’s heyday it was a little bit more.  I hear on good authority that there used to be a blacksmith shop, a general store, a hotel, and a public livestock pen so people driving their herds down highway three could stop, corral their livestock, and rest comfortably in the hotel.  But that was a long time ago.  Luray hasn’t seen that much business since . . . well, since you went to town to look for a blacksmith’s shop.

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Ever wonder why I love my church?

Probably not, but I’m going to show you anyway.  Here’s the video:

This last Sunday our church had what we call “Imagine Ministries Sunday” when we hand off our Sunday services to our Children’s ministries. Our children’s pastor, Rev. Jill Waltz, plans the sermon and presents the message. Our Imagine Praise Team who minister each week in children’s church take a turn leading us in worship. The kids fill the choir loft and take part in other aspects of the service.

The video is a compilation of the pictures I took during worship Sunday morning. It shows, at least in part, why I love my church so much.

It has nothing to do with my youth ministry – though I have some of the best teens on the planet.

It has nothing to do with how well the church takes care of me and supports my ministry – though they do an outstanding job.

It has everything to do with how my church ministers to my family. I know my children are growing up under the care of a great pastor and team.

After the jump I’ve picked out my five favorite pictures from yesterday which show exactly what I love about our church’s children’s ministry. You can see all the pictures I took on my flickr account here.

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Mythbusters: Water's Edge

Weekend Teaching Series: Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Title: Myth #5: If you give up on hope, then you’ll be happy.

Sermon in a Sentence: Biblical hope does not disappoint because it is grounded in a God who does not fail.

Text(s): Ecclesiastes 9:3-5, Isaiah 38:18, Romans 5:1-5

Weekend Scale of Difficulty:8 of 10; This week’s lesson incorporated several videos which all had to be cued at the right time, plus shooting the best (and most complicated) of our Mythbusters videos.

Message Summary:

This week we wrap up our Mythbusters series with a sermon on hope. Originally we were going to complete the trilogy of faith, hope and love, but a couple of snow days and the fact that our next series is set to coincide with Lent means we have to cut it short and wrap up this week.

We began by showing a video from eleven72 called Change IS Possible.  It features a guy singing about hope.  Only he realizes as he sings that some people never change, and hoping they will really is meaningless.  The song ends with the line: “There is no hope.  Give up on hope.  If you give up on hope then you’ll be happy. Or whatever.” The video closes with text on the screen encouraging viewers not to give up on hope, but we made sure to stop the video before that.  Our fifth myth was the closing line of the song – “If you give up on hope, then you’ll be happy.”

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Mythbusters: Water's Edge

Weekend Teaching Series: Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Title: Myth #4: All You Gotta Do is Believe

Sermon in a Sentence: Biblical faith moves from mental assent, to trust, to obedience, and ultimately to an experience of God’s grace.

Text(s): Genesis 15:6; John 3:36, 6:29; Acts 8;Romans 5:1; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 2:8-9

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 of 10 Yeah, we did another custom video (see below) but that’s nothing new.  The only “new” thing was having to convert a Quicktime video clip from wingclips.com so it would play in EasyWorship.  (We use Super for video conversions. I thoroughly recommend it.  I do not, however, necessarily recommend EasyWorship.  It has some real plusses, but also some significant drawbacks.)

Message Summary:

The message this week focused on what exactly the Bible means by “Faith.”

We started off talking about the “power of positive thinking.”  Showed a quick video clip from the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop from wingclips.com.  If you haven’t checked them out yet, I’d strongly recommend it.  They have a detailed and current index of movie clips.  What is more, you can get the clips directly from them, including clips from movies that are in theaters right now, like Mall Cop.  Seeing a clip from an “In Theaters” movie instantly got students attention.  Next time it might not, but for the first time we’ve used Wingclips, it was an instant attention getter.

The clip we showed featured Paul Blart (Kevin James) explaining that “the mind is the only weapon that doesn’t need a holster.”

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Mythbusters: Water's Edge

Weekend Teaching Series: Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Title: Myth #3: It’s to late for me to go home now

Sermon in a Sentence: You are God’s child, and there will always be a place at home for you.

Text(s): Matthew 12:31-32; Luke 15:11-24

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 of 10; Again, about the only difficult thing was producing another episode of our Mythbusters spoof videos.

Message Summary:

This week I decided to offer something even better than a summary.  If you’re interested, I’ve posted the full audio of the sermon in our Senior High Service.

Of course, if you’d rather read a summary, here it is.

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Last week was a crazy week.  Didn’t get much done by the way of blogging unfortunately.  But I didn’t forget you all . . .

Here it is, the Week in Review for our second night in the Mythbuster’s series.

Mythbusters: Water's Edge

Weekend Teaching Series: Mythbusters

Message Title: Myth Two: God Doesn’t Speak to People Any More

Sermon in a Sentence: If we want to hear God’s voice, we need to stop reading the Bible and start eating it.

Text(s): Deuteronomy 11:18; Joshua 1:8;1 Samuel 3; Psalm 1:2; 2 Timothy 2:15; James 1:22; Revelation 10:9

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 7 of 10, now that our set is set, this service was fairly easy.  The only real challenge was making yet another episode of Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Summary: We started with the story of the calling of Samuel, a young man dedicated to God by his mother Hannah, who grew up in the Tabernacle serving God and the High Priest Eli.  Late one night the Bible tells us that Samuel heard a voice calling his name.  He got up, went to the side of the aging Eli the priest, as he probably did fairly often, and asked “What is it you want?”  Eli tells Samuel that he did not call him, and sends him back to bed.

The Bible tells us this happens three times before the High Priest realizes what’s going on.  Finally it dawns on the old priest that God is calling the boy.

Now we can understand why young Samuel might be confused.  What doesn’t make sense is Eli’s response.  How can the High Priest of Israel fail to recognize the voice of God?

I suspect it’s because Eli fell for our second myth: God doesn’t speak to people any more.

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The coming of Epiphany also marks the beginning of second semester for our school students.  And it marks the end of Christmas break and the return of our weekly youth services.  So, here it is, our first Week in Review of 2009.

Mythbusters: Water's Edge

Weekly Teaching Series: Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Title: Myth #1: It’s the motions that matter

Sermon in a Sentence: It’s time to stop going through the motions of Christianity and begin seeking God as our first priority and greatest desire.

Text(s): Deuteronomy 4:29, 1 Samuel 13, 2 Chronicles 15, Matthew 5:6, 7:7-8

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 10 of 10; This was a lot of fun, but a lot of work.  Christmas Break was blessing and curse.  Gave us some extra time to get our Christmas set down and the Mythbusters set up, but vacation also ate up some of that extra time.  Also, a we launched a series of in-house Mythbusters episodes which added a lot to the complexity.

Mythbusters Set, for more info and higher res, click on picture.

Message Summary: This message in a nutshell was the tale of two kings, Saul (of Israel) and Asa (of Judah).  Saul became king of Israel during a time of war and unrest.  He was anointed by the prophet Samuel who gave him some pretty clear instructions: “Go to Gilgal and wait.  In seven days I will come and we will offer sacrifices.  But don’t do anything until I come and tell you what to do.”  Saul obeyed – gathering the armies of Israel to do battle with the Philistines.

When they arrived they were shocked and awed by the enemy facing them – 3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers and more soldiers than they could count.  The soldiers of Israel are scared, but Saul tells them “Just wait, Samuel’s coming.”

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This last Sunday our youth choir, under the excellent direction of our Children’s Minister Pastor Jill presented Geron Davis’ Christmas musical The Cradle that Rocked the World (from Brentwood Benson publishers).  It was an incredible service and I had the privilege of  preaching the message as part of the presentation.  (That’s why it’s so short — I hardly ever am this timely.)

In keeping with the musical, the theme was “This baby changes everything.”   And it is basically a retelling of the story of Simeon in Luke 2 .  (I had originally hoped to include the story of Anna, but time did not permit.)

Below’s my first attempt with Vimeo video.  Obviously I did not have the right deinterlace setting on in Handbrake when I converted it from our service DVD.  Oh well, live and learn, right?

The Story of Simeon from Bradley Buhro on Vimeo.

A few months back, someone from our church sent the staff a link to a video of part of a service from Hillside Christian Church in Amarillo, TX.  In it several church members came up and silently shared their testimonies written in magic marker on pieces of cardboard.  If you haven’t seen this incredibly moving video, you can see it here.

Needless to say we (and judging from the number of similar videos on youtube countless other churches) thought it was a great idea.  We incorporated it into this weekends Christmas Program Jesus…the Only Name That Saves. Here’s the video:

BTW, if you watch very closely, at 0:22 you can see my five year old sleeping in the front row of the choir as the first cardboard testimony (George: “I was on a road to nowhere . . . then God took me on a Journey through Jerusalem”) turns to walk away.

But as moving as it was to watch the video from HCC, I’ve got to admit, knowing the people on the platform, and the stories behind their words, makes it even more moving.  I still can’t watch it without crying like a baby. . .especially when one of my best friends, Jalinda, whose fiancee Jeremy, an ambulance driver, died just months before their wedding while responding to an EMS call, testified to the fact that in the midst of grief and hardship God gave her love and grace.  It was especially moving given that it was just a few days after the three year anniversary of Jeremy’s last call.

Or George, one of my teen small group leaders, who testified to the fact that God got a hold of his heart when he was invited to volunteer in our Journey through Jerusalem event a few years back.

Or Pat . . .

Or Sarah . . .

Or Brianna . . .

I wish I had time to tell you each of their stories.  But suffice it to say, we serve a great God.