SAVE THE DATE OCTOBER 20, 2007 RAIN OR SHINE 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
MUSIC FESTIVAL AND VENDOR FAIR
CHOIRS AND MUSICIANS AND MORE THAN 15 VENDORS
GAMES AND FACE PAINTING FOR THE CHILDREN
FOOD, SODAS, POPCORN AND COTTON CANDY REASONABLY PRICED
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church
200 Marrows Road, Brookside, Newark, DE
302-738-4331
If you signed up to help serve at the Blue Rocks concession stand on Wednesday, May 9, don’t forget that tonight’s the night. Meet Darrel Distefano or Jim Sparks at concession stand 2 at Frawley Stadium at 4:30 p.m. Be sure and bring the waiver form that the team asks everyone to sign. See you there!
(For those of you who are NOT serving at the Blue Rocks game, don’t forget that we will still be having our Wednesday night worship at St. Andrew’s. Rev. Tom Stoudt from Elsmere Presbyterian Church will be officiating at communion.)
Dinner at Friendly’s Restaurant
June 4, 2007
5 p.m.-9 p.m.
1115 S. College Avenue
Newark, Delaware
Join us at Friendly’s between 5 – 9 PM for dinner, dessert or whatever you wish to purchase. A portion of your bill will be donated to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in support of their Outreach/Mission programs.
The following dates are fun dates. We are looking for volunteers to have some fun on these dates at the Blue Rocks game at Frawley Stadium. Wednesday; May 9, Saturday; July 14, Friday; July 27, Wednesday; August 8 and Thursday; August 23. On Wednesday; May 9 we are for the first time working the big concession stand and will need at least 20 volunteers.
On the remaining dates we will again be working the Kids’ Fun Zone and the soft serve ice cream stand. We will need 5 or 6 people on each of these 4 dates.
The St. Andrews Men’s Group will receive 12% of the receipts from our stand, with a minimum of $50 guaranteed ($100 for the big stand). So come on out and volunteer by signing up on the sign up sheet in fellowship hall and get ready to have some fun at the ballgame.
If you have questions please call Darrell DiStefano at 410-620-9173 or see him at church.
Luncheon and Fashion Show
April 12, 2007 11:00 a.m.
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church
200 Marrows Road
Newark, DE
There will be fashions by BonWorth, Jewelry by Premier.
A great lunch and door prizes.
Get your tickets early! Seating is limited! Donation of $15 is requested.
Call Gloria at 366-0446 or Myrtle at 731-4788
Our Mission Trip to Mississippi is not the only way that St. Andrews is making a difference in the world. Through our support of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance we are touching the lives of people half way around the world. This video shows what PDA is doing in response to the Tsunami of 2005.
February 24, 2007Â
A Lenten Sermon Based on Luke 9:57-62 and 14:25-35
By the Rev. John G. Paderson
These are challenging words for the first Sunday in Lent. But I think that they are also necessary and appropriate words for Lent because Lent is a time of self examination when we are to assess where we stand in our walk with the Lord. And what better standards to judge our walk by than the standards set forth by the Lord Himself. They are necessary and appropriate words because they help us to evaluate the quality of our own discipleship: whether we are willing to incur the cost and the cost is the cross.
But before we can use them as a standard we need to understand them and in order to understand them we need to know something about the context in which Jesus spoke these word and to whom he spoke them.
Jesus spoke these words on his way to Jerusalem where he would endure the agony of the cross to save our souls.
And Jesus spoke these words to a crowd of people who were eager to follow Jesus but were as yet unaware of the cost which is the cross.
Following Christ and being faithful to Christ is a thorny issue. It is a thorny issue because it involves thorns. Sometimes the thorns are big and painful and sometimes they are small uncomfortable. But large or small they are still thorns and they cannot be avoided if we want to be faithful to Christ’s call.
Sisters and brothers, following Christ is a costly enterprise. The late great Christian Martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way in his book Cost of Discipleship:
“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world…In fact every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. ……Every day he encounters new temptations, and every day he must suffer anew for Jesus Christ’s sake.”
Let’s take a look at some of the thorns that Jesus speaks about in today’s passages. Jesus said:
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.”
To follow Jesus involves giving up the comforts of home for the discomforts of the road. In other words: men, following Jesus involves giving up a life on the couch. Discipleship is for Road Warriors not couch potatoes. Discipleship is a thorny business and there are more to come.
Following Jesus involves giving up our preoccupation with the things associated with the dead so that we can occupy our time with what produces life. Jesus put it this way. He said let the dead bury the dead but you proclaim the kingdom of God. Burying the dead while necessary is not life giving. It is life ending. Whereas preaching the Gospel is life giving. It brings the dead to life in Christ.
Let me give you an example that illustrates what Jesus was driving at. A pastor by the name of Kenneth Mitchell tells of how when he worked on the loading dock of a trucking company, he worked alongside a fine Christian man. The man had just completed his associate’s degree in transportation and was seeking a full time career.
The man was offered a promotion to a good paying sales position with a career track but decided not to take it because it would require that he give up his ministry with singles at his church. He decided he could wait until a position opened up that would allow him to continue with his life giving ministry. Rather than pursue death by career he chose to pursue bringing people to life in Christ. Discipleship is a thorny business and there are more thorns to come.
The next thorn is the one you encounter when you look back to the life you left. Jesus said:
“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Perhaps what he meant by that was that if you keep looking back, you are going to long for the old life of comfort and turn back. Discipleship is a thorny business but there are more thorns still.
The biggest thorn of all is our attachments to those we love. Here Jesus gets downright outrageous. He said:
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
 Now I imagine there are some out there both men and women who might not find it too outrageous to hate their mother-in-laws. But I seriously doubt that there are many out there who don’t find hating their whole family just a bit too outrageous. I must admit that I am one of them. This whole statement seems so out of character for Jesus who commanded us to love one another and said he didn’t come to abolish the law which includes the commandment to honor thy father and thy mother. So what is going on here?
I think the key to this passage is found later on in the Gospel according to Luke. Please turn with me to Chapter 16 verse 13. What does Jesus say:
“No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.”
Has anybody here tried to work for two bosses? What is the result? The result is that you can’t keep them both happy. You will often please one and annoy the other and vice a versa until each either loves you or hates you and you them.Has anybody here tried to work for two bosses? What is the result? The result is that you can’t keep them both happy. You will often please one and annoy the other and vice a versa until each either loves you or hates you and you them.
Has anybody here tried to work for two bosses? What is the result? The result is that you can’t keep them both happy. You will often please one and annoy the other and vice a versa until each either loves you or hates you and you them.
But there is another point to consider here. We think of love and hate as emotions and extreme emotions at that. Jesus on though isn’t talking about emotions here. Remember what I said last week: in Jesus’ mind love is not an emotion to be felt, it is a decision to be made in favor of another. Well it is the same with hate. Hate is nothing but the opposite of love. For Jesus, it is not an emotion; it is a decision to be made that disfavors another. It is therefore not a question of emotion; it is a question of devotion.
Who are you going to favor when Christ demands one thing and your mother, father, sister, brother, son, or daughter demands that you do just the opposite. If you favor your family you will disfavor Christ or in Jesus’ terms you will love your family and hate him. And if you favor Christ you will disfavor your family or in Jesus’ terms you will love him and hate your family. What Jesus is driving at is that if you want to be one of his disciples, your going to have to be devoted to your relationship with him over all the other relationships in your life. One commentator on this passage put it nicely when he said:
“What is demanded of disciples …is that in the network of many loyalties in which all of us live, the claim of Christ and the gospel not only take precedence but, in fact, redefines the others.”
That is not easy to do that is why discipleship is a thorny business.
We need to keep that in mind because it is tempting to want Christ without the thorns. But if we only will accept him without the cross of suffering we are in the words of Calvin Miller. “Christalolics” rather than disciples. A “Christaholic” according to Miller is an escapist who seeks after happiness highs. He wrote that:
“Christ is not a happiness capsule; he is the way to the Father. But the way to the Father is not a carnival ride in which we sit and do nothing while we are whisked through various spiritual sensations.”
No, the way to the Father is the way of the thorns for discipleship is a thorny business. But along with the thorns comes a rose. Along with the thorns of letting go of life on the couch comes the rose of experiencing a life of adventure on the road with Christ. Along with the thorns of giving up the things of death comes the rose of the abundant life. Along with the thorns of not looking back comes the rose of seeing the magnificent place to which Jesus is taking you. And along with the thorns of choosing Christ’s will over the will of your relatives comes the rose of being able to love them rather than indulge them.No, the way to the Father is the way of the thorns for discipleship is a thorny business. But along with the thorns comes a rose.
No, the way to the Father is the way of the thorns for discipleship is a thorny business. But along with the thorns comes a rose.
Is discipleship worth the thorns? I think so but it is not what I think that counts. It is what you think that counts? If you think discipleship is worth the thorns then pick up your cross and follow Jesus. Â
We would like to thank Gloria Johnson for volunteering to lead the Wednesday morning Bible Study. Starting Wednesday; February 28,2007 Gloria will lead the Bible Study in Mark 8. Everyone is invited to attend starting at 10:00 a.m.
The mission teams of St. Andrew’s and Elkton Presbyterian Churches would like to thank all of our wonderful supporters by inviting you to a celebratory dinner at the church on Tuesday, February 20, at 6:00 p.m. Everyone is invited and this will be a great opportunity to learn more about our efforts on the Gulf Coast. We will have a slide show and testimonials from all of the folks who worked so hard sharing Christ’s love with our brothers and sisters in Mississippi.
Due to the snow and ice conditions that we are experiencing today, all afternoon and evening activities for Wednesday, February 14, are canceled. This includes both Pioneer Club and the mid-week worship service. Thank you for your understanding, and stay safe on the roads.
