This week our Adult Sunday School Class is reading Chapter 18 of The Purpose Driven Life. (Rick Warren)  Warren States:  "Life is meant to be shared"...The Bible Commands, 'Share each other's troubles and problems and in this way obey the law of Christ. '  "Warren goes on to say,  It is in the times of deep crisis, grief, and doubt that we need each other most.  When circumstances crush us to the point that our faith falters, that's when we need believing friends the most.  We need a small group of friends to have faith in God for us and to pull us through.  In a small group, the body of Christ is real and tangible even when God seems distant."  What practical wisdom this is for all of us.

Lenten Bible Study Series 2015

Norridgewock Congregational and Smithfield Baptist Churches

Wednesday February 25, 2015

Smithfield

Welcome and Call to Worship         Bert

Psalm 137: 1-6

In the face of great difficulty people have always sung their feelings, their pain and joy.

“To some degree or other

faith must always sing its song in the midst of

strangeness.

If Jesus could sing a hymn with his disciples on

the night of his betrayal and arrest; if Paul and Silas

could sing at midnight in a jail at Phillippi; if King

Gustavus Adolphus could have his entire army sing "Ein'

Feste Burg" on the eve of the battle of Leipzig when

the city was under seige; if martyrs could sing on

their final march to death; if Martin Rinkart could

write "Now Thank We All Our God," under the dark night

of the thirty years war; if Negro slaves could sing

under the lash of cruel servitude; then the faithful

can sing in any situation - hostile or no . The songs

of faith come from the inside out, not from the out-

side in.”

Dr. Ernest Campbell…Princeton Seminary 1972

Hymn Just As I Am, Without One Plea

Prayer                          Nate

Introduction to the Study       Bert and Nate

Sharing the stories that caused us to ask…”Where is God in the suffering I am experiencing?”

A time of sharing prayer for each other and for those who need God’s help to find meaning in the suffering they experience.

A shared blessing          Bert and Nate and the gathered community.

Ash Wednesday – February 18, 2015

Norridgewock Congregational Church

Ash Wednesday…What’s It All About?

1.     Ash Wednesday…What’s it all about?  Why this special day?…Why at the beginning of Lent?...What part does it play in my faith in Jesus…my experience of my spiritual life?

My own experiences with Ash Wednesday have been very interesting, especially for one who comes from a Presbyterian/Baptist/non liturgical tradition. 

Growing up in Philadelphia I was always intrigued by my Catholic friends showing up on the playground with a black smudge on their foreheads.  “It’s Ash Wednesday, they would say, as if that was enough explanation.”

I don’t believe I had much more exposure to the day until I began working at Seton and Thayer with Father Ned Hogan.  “Ash Wednesday, he told me, we will have to have ashes for the staff and any patients who want to be blessed.”

So at this point I started making associations with the day and practice of receiving the ashes on your forehead.

It was the beginning of lent…looking ahead to Easter.

The ashes were the blessed burned palms from the previous Easter…

And receiving the ashes was something that many people of faith really looked forward to…I found that out when we no longer had a priest as chaplain and people were really upset when we didn’t provide ashes.

I soon found ways to make them available to them.

2.     This experience made me look deeper at the meaning of Ash Wednesday and the mark of the ashes on a forehead.

This is where my Calvinist/Baptist heritage kicked in.

I had to find the deeper meaning of the external symbol.

I could see it in people’s faces…not just the black cross on their temple but something deeper, something in their eyes as they received the ashes and the blessing and as they shared what it meant to be able to receive this blessing and then go about their work day.

3. This is What I Discovered:

First it was a connection with their faith…it was an outward and visible sign of their inner commitment to their faith.

That connected with me…the Baptist.  We are all about outward and visible signs…that represent deep inner conviction.  The Bible we carry…The Church Community we Worship in…The initiation rite of Baptism…The freedom to worship true to conscience as God leads us to worship.

Faith isn’t just about what we say and proclaim…it is about what we do. 

Three of the great and familiar readings for today reflect this concept of faith…The prophet Joel exhorts his people in their time of fasting and prayer…”to rend their hearts and not just their garments”…The prophet Isaiah asks his people to dig deep in their religious observance…Is not this the fasting I have chosen…God tells his people…”to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke”…

Jesus words to his disciples about the meaning of real piety also reflect that worship and spirituality is a thing of the heart not something we do for show.

“When you do your acts of righteousness, don’t do them to be seen.”

“When you give to the needy don’t announce it with trumpets.”

“When you pray don’t be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen.”

We are called to make our faith real in quiet actions of love and service.

Ash Wednesday represents something we do that does have a real connection with our faith.

Second  I learned as I watched those who participate in Ash Wednesday experience was…that…it was  something that connected them with others who shared this faith, even though they might not all express their faith in the same way.

There was lot of good friendly connection going on as people gathered to receive the ashes.

It was something that brought people together…around a powerful symbol.

The symbol was the symbol of the ashes…

Ashes are an ancient symbol of sadness and mourning.  In Old Testament times those who mourned put on sack clothes and dusted themselves with ashes to reflect the pain of loss in their lives. 

They sat in sadness and they shared their sadness with others and others came and ministered to them in their grief and need.

For hospital people/for all people that is a really important reminder.  We are a generation of people who have lost the deep need for mourning and grief…we have important work to do…no time for expressing feelings…there is just too much pain around us to allow us the time to mourn or be sad…

Yet one of God’s great gifts to us is the gift of grief and the healing an open expression of grief…not just for the death of one we love but our grief over our  sin and separation in life from self, others, and God…

Our Jewish ancestors practiced what the ashes of Ash Wednesday represent…The Psalms are filled with lament…and honest sharing of our pain…with the expectation that God hears our pain and cares for us…and heals us and helps us and forgives us.

David’s psalm of lament…Psalm 51…reminds us that…the sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit…broken open and available for healing…”A broken and a contrite heart O God you will not despise.”

Third, receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday,  was a very powerful reminder to the people I worked with of something really important for those who work with the sick.  It was a reminder that while we may mourn the pain and suffering of those we serve…we also on many occasions …when we have made a commitment of ourselves to the health and healing of others…we experience the great gift of blessing and healing and renewal that send people home well and whole and able to continue their lives.

The ashes of Ash Wednesday lead us into the journey of lent.

In Lent we walk with Jesus…into the pain of the cross…but then we also walk with him out onto the other side of that pain into the light of the resurrection and the new life Jesus offers us all.

This is the great paradox of our faith.  We are people who gladly accept the ashes of pain…and enter the dark places of suffering…because we know that doing so opens up to us the incredible opportunity to learn new and wonderful ways that God uses all of our experience to bring us closer to Him.

People who struggle with addiction often surprise us when they tell us…I am Bill…I am an alcoholic.  We want them to get over their addiction and just be Bill.  But what Bill has learned is that he is only free when he is honest about his addiction.

We are only really free when we face the darkness in ourselves and the world we live in and bring to it the light of Christ.

“Therefore Paul says…if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has gone the new has come.”

We are made new…born again…by accepting the ashes of pain and loss and suffering and fear and anxious worry and then putting our hand in the hand of the man from Galilee who walks with us through our difficulty out into the light of God’s new day!

4.I hope that for each of us here tonight…we will find our own experience of this ash Wednesday as a time to:

Renew our faith in the God who walks with us in both light and darkness…

To recommit ourselves to making our faith real as the Gospel reading reminds us…not an outward display but a deep inner commitment to God  and to His Son Jesus.

And finally to continuing to find for ourselves those places, those communities where we can join with others to experience the love of God in a fellowship of others who struggle just as we do.

May this be a day of blessing for us all.

Prayer:

Dear God we thank you that you have called us together tonight.  You always shine your light on the dark places in our lives…but you don’t ever just leave us there alone…standing…waiting…You come to us powerfully offering us the gifts of your Holy Spirit…gifts of health and healing and grace and mercy and peace.  We thank you for these gifts and we ask that we will become powerful witnesses to others of your loving and healing ways…In Jesus name…Amen.

 

"The Blizzard of 2015" returns!

All church events cancelled for Sunday, February 15th, 2015. Here we go again!

Lenten Study Groups Norridgewock and Smithfield Churches 2015

Norridgewock Congregational and Smithfield Baptist Churches

Nate Richards and Bert Brewster Pastors

Lenten Study Groups – 2015

“Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?”

Lenten Meetings to begin on Ash Wednesday at 7pm at Norridgewock Church

Nate and Bert and Other Clergy Participating…Bert to offer the Sermon

Dates, Time,  and Speakers for this years Lenten Study Groups

February 18^th                        Wednesday 7pm       Norridgewock            Ash Wednesday

                 25^th                        Wednesday 7pm       Smithfield      Introductory Session

Nate and Bert Leading and members of Nate’s church bring      their concerns to the table.

March      4^th              Wednesday  7pm      Norridgewock            John Vogel leader

Rev. Jonathan Vogel is an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He recently concluded over twenty-two years of ministry in parish settings and now serves a call as a full-time Chaplain within the Spiritual Care Department of Maine General Medical Center. At the Alfond Center for Health Jonathan seeks to provide support to the patients, their families, and hospital staff, meeting each person where her or his faith journey may be, acknowledging that we are each made up of mind, body and spirit. Jonathan, his wife Rebecca, and two sons live in China, ME. They have previously lived in Connecticut, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania.

                 11^th                        Wednesday   7pm     Smithfield                  David Gant leader

Reverend David Gant…Director of Spiritual Care …Is a pastor ordained in the Metropolitan Community Church and has led churches in California, New Mexico and Florida. David has been in Maine for 8 years and worked with MaineGeneral Home Care and Hospice before taking on the role of Director of Spiritual Care at the hospital. The Spiritual Care Department attempts to visit with every inpatient in the hospital and provides spiritual care coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. “I love working with all of the chaplains at MaineGeneral and providing Spiritual Care Services to the wonderful people who come to the hospital as patients. Every patient and family that I meet is a blessing to me and each interaction nourishes my soul..”

David is serving his 2^nd year on the Board of Directors of the United Way of Kennebec Valley and is a Co-Chair of one of the United Way Allocations Committees. In 2008 David was named “Caregiver of the Year” while working at Beacon Hospice and is committed to treating each patient; body, mind and Spirit. David’s interests are varied and he has been involved in a myriad of activities including: serving as a volunteer chaplain for the Albuquerque Police Department, providing counseling services for The Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice, participating in the HIV Health Services Planning Council and being a co-chair for Equality begins at Home.

                 18^th                        Wednesday    7pm    Norridgewock            Pam Gross leader

For the past four years Pam has served as a Staff Chaplain at Maine General in Augusta, initially for Oncology and Critical Care patients, and then at Thayer hospital, serving all units, including surgery, behavioral health, maternity/pediatrics, imaging. She has been a member of palliative care teams, a proponent of interfaith chaplaincy, and facilitator of patient support groups. Pam developed and presented programs on end-of-life, Advance Directives and meditation.  Pam is an Ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and educator and served Maine based congregations for over 19 years. Pam was a chaplaincy resident at Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston. Her Strengths include patient advocacy, an ability to connect meaningfully across diverse patient populations, and a stalwart supporter and caregiver to medical staff.

                   25^th                      Wednesday    7pm    Smithfield  Bert Brewster/Ray Anderson

Finding the Two Churches:

Smithfield Baptist Church…where Bert is Pastor  …is located just off of rt’s 8 and 137 at the head of North Pond in Smithfield Maine.  The Church is on Lake Shore Drive.  Easiest way to get there from Augusta is to take 95 to the Oakland Waterville exit…go toward Oakland on Kennedy Drive (137…)  Follow 137 to where it turns right on Rt. 8…follow 8 between North and East Ponds…come down the long hill …you see North Pond in front of you and bear left at the General Store…the Church is just over the hill.  You could take 27 out of Augusta to rt. 8 going back toward Smithfield Norridgewock and follow 8 until you reach the village and make the left on 137.  Church phone is 362-5891…Bert and Carol’s phone 465-7060.

Norridgewock Congregational Church…where Nate Richards is Pastor is located at 36 River Road in Norrdgewock Maine.  Again you could take 95 to the second Waterville exit…Upper Maine street  going through the shopping centers…after exiting take a left going west on Upper Main or 139 and follow it until you come to Norridgewock…when you come down the hill into town you will stop at a light that lets traffic cross over on rt 8 to Skowhegan…go straight on through town to the second light and take a right across the new bridge…at the end of the bridge take a right and the church is just a short distance from the turn.  You can also take rt. 8 through Smithfield and on through to Norridgewock…where 8 enters town take the left that takes you up the towns main street to that light that signals the left across the bridge to the church. 

Nate and I developed the idea behind and format for these programs because we have both experienced the pain of those who struggle to discover where God is in their suffering.

Both of us have had our own experiences with these tough questions in our own lives and in the lives of those we serve as pastors.

Our title for the series comes from the book by Rabbi Harold Kushner in which he chose to wrestle openly and in print with is own very personal struggle…understanding the pain and suffering he and his family and especially he as a Rabbi felt at the untimely and difficult death of his young son to a wasting disease of accelerating aging.

Rabbi Kushner expressed what historically people of all faith’s have wrestled with and that is the place God has in our lives when we experience suffering and pain that seems to be beyond our ability to cope, manage or find meaning.

We both know that a variety of explanations of God’s place in human pain have been given as people have wrestled with the age old question of Theodicy.

We know the pain of those who feel abandoned by God in the throws of deep depression.  We know the answers Job’s friends offered him as he lay scraping his sours…and answers that some still offer today…that he/we must have done something to displease God that has caused our suffering.  We both have worked with and listened to those who struggle with their anger at God for the pain and difficulty in their lives and who chose to blame God and push God away in their frustration.  We know too the new understanding and courage gained by those who have accepted their suffering and gained new insight in to the meaning and purpose of life as they have embraced and entered the “dark wood” where insight lies waiting for the courageous searcher.

Our hope is that we and all who share in these Lenten meetings will be blest by God to grow in our own personal faith and encounter with God in all of life the good and joyous…the pain filled and difficult.  

We plan to structure the meetings in the following way…An opening and introduction…followed by prayer and scripture and possibly music…then introduction of our topic and speakers…we hope our leaders will take about 15 to 20 minutes of presentation then open the floor to discussion of the topic…we then want to end the meeting with prayer that we all take part in …offering those attending the chance to voice their own prayer concerns and us the chance to pray for them.

Again many thanks to all of you who have been willing to help us address these very difficult but also very important matters of faith.

Bert and Nate