Welcome to the Newsletter for the Burns Flat

Cumberland Presbyterian Church

OCTOBER 2007

Pulpit Filled for October.  What do you think of when you think of October?  Columbus Day, turning leaves, OU-Texas Football, kids at your door dressed as Spiderman asking for candy?   Well add this to your October list.   We have once again filled the pulpit for each Sunday from members of our congregation.  Hallelujah!  

October

 7          Rick Ellis

14        James Hendrix

21        Mary Faye Delp

28        Bob Nagle

 And the tentative slate for November Pulpit Supply:

 4          Rick Ellis

11        Tom Spence

18        Dana Ellis

25        James Hendrix

October Greeters

7    Bob & Patsy Nagle

14    Sharman Spence

21    Jesse and Marie Black

28    Lynn Ferrari

    F-4 Marches On!  The menu is something simple, but hearty.  The company can't be beat.  Occasionally there is a game or brain teaser, but there is always good fellowship.  Please stop by on Wednesday evening at 6:00 pm for a meal you didn't have to prepare and some classes that will recharge your batteries for the rest of the week.  Note:  We will not have F-4 on 31 October 2007, but the women’s bible study will still meet at 7:00 p.m. at the church.  Read more..

 FIRST SUNDAY FOOD DRIVE

 Please remember to bring an item of canned food the first Sunday of each month.  There will be a basket by the front entryway.  We have been distributing food to the needy in our community and your donation will not sit on the shelf for long.

 Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'  "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'  "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'  "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'  "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'  "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Matt 25:34-46 (NIV)

  If you would like to be a part of our Food Pantry program,  would like to help us collect, sort, and distribute food as part of our Thanksgiving and Christmas basket program, or help with sorting and distributing gifts as part of the Angel Tree program, see Anne Spence of the missions committee.  Discover the blessings of helping others in our community!

WOMEN OF FAITH IN OKC

The Women of Faith Conference comes to Oklahoman City on the 2nd and 3rd of November 2007.  Many ladies from our church and our community have attended in the past and are planning to attend once again.  Kendra Walker still has a few tickets left, but these will go quickly.  If you don't see her at church, please call her at 562-3396.  Read More about the conference.

THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE

The men's Wednesday night bible study has taken on the challenge of reading the Purpose Driven Life in 40 days.  Fell free to join us.  We have extra books and can catch you up quickly.

This program is intended to be conducted over the course of 40 consecutive days.  We will start slowly with just the introduction and first day on the 12^th, then transition to daily reading thereafter.  Our weekly discussion will address 7 days worth of reading, focusing on whatever the group wants to spend the most time on.  Discussion will be lead by co-facilitators, but will be most productive if everyone wrote down and brought in two insights into the previous week’s readings and two questions for the group.  We will also be watching the Rick Warren video, which will take about 15-20 minutes of each session. I’m sure that this will give us a very full hour and lots to think about between meetings.

Remember, commit to reading one chapter a day for the next 40 days.  I hope that you will all take the memory verse challenge as well.

 SCHEDULE & FACILITATION

 SEPTEMBER (TOM)

 12        INTRO AND DAY (CHAPTER) 1

 19        DAY 2-7

 26        DAY 8-14

 OCTOBER

 3          DAY 15-21 (DARRON & LARRY)

 10        DAY 22-28 (JUNIOR & GENE)

 17        DAY 29-35 (JAMES & RICK)

 24        DAY 36-40 (DERRICK & PHIL)

 NOVEMBER

 7          CATCH-UP, WRAP UP, APPENDIX 1 (PHIL & TOM)

            REHEARSAL FOR TALENT SHOW

 14        THANKSGIVING MEAL AND TALENT SHOW

Wind Sprints

Reading the Purpose Driven Life for the second time through, this time on a strict 40-day regimen, the words test and trust jumped out at me as they did not before.  Yes, I remember thinking about life preparing me for eternity and I love the parable of the talents—the quintessential account of taking what we have—little or great—and doing the best we can with it for our master.  While the verbiage in the book had not changed; my life circumstances had changed.  This 40-day journey takes place concurrently with a search for a new pastor.

The test that is front and center for most of the congregation is will we be patient and trust God to provide us the right pastor at the right time.  I hope that we have the patience, perhaps the King James term longsuffering might become more appropriate as the months go by, to wait for our pastor even if he or she is currently sitting in children’s church on Sunday morning and won’t even enter seminary until 2017 or 2020.  Whether our test in this area is another month or ends up being a decade, I hope that we pursue the trust part of this duo as a church that is running a race—focused on the goal and not veering from the path.  I think there may be something of a paradox formed between the test and the trust in our present circumstance.  The more we turn to God in this time of trial, the more talents we will see revealed in our congregation or the tougher the trial the sweeter the fruits.  We may very well see blessings during this period that we would have missed if we had not lost our pastor or even if he had been replaced in short order.  God is refining his people for his purposes.  Instead of wondering the who, if, when, how long of finding our next pastor; let’s run this race without fear, let’s offer our talents freely, let’s encourage one another, and most of all let’s work towards that “well done good and faithful servant” that tells us our Lord is pleased with what we have done with what he gave us.  To do this, we need to silence the voice that tells us to go bury our talent in the ground and just wait it out until we can get a pastor. 

 As strange as it may sound, I can best relate a test from God to wind sprints.  Long ago and not so far away, at the end of each football practice session, we would run wind sprints.  During my first couple football seasons, there was nothing I hated more than wind sprints.  Sometimes, the thought of having to run wind sprints would permeate my attitude throughout the entire practice and a sport that I had enjoyed became unbearable.  I was just getting through practice hoping during every minute that it would just be over.  Then one day for no particular reason, I thought I would just run as hard as I could on the first wind sprint.  Maybe it would kill me and the misery would be over.  It didn’t, but I did beat almost everyone in this 40-yard excursion.  A strange thing happened.  I quickly went back to the line and was ready to run the next sprint.  That time only one player beat me and he was looking at me like, ‘where in the world did you come from.’  I had mistakenly moved from the linemen and linebackers group to running with the backs and wide receivers, and was beating most of them.  There was no turning back now.  I got stronger with every sprint and couldn’t wait until the next one.  What had been an unbearable trial was now a challenge where I was thinking, ‘how about one more.’  The more I pushed myself towards exhaustion, the stronger I felt a few moments later.

 As I think about our current trial of looking for a pastor, I hope we can experience the same thing that I did with wind sprints.  Today, I can probably run a 40 yard sprint in about a day and a half, but I think that we as a church can grow in faith, purpose, and love just by focusing on the things we need to do right here, right now to please God.  We need to be running spiritual wind sprints without holding back.  The new pastor will just have to get in shape whenever he gets here.

FALL FEAST SET FOR OCTOBER 6^TH.  Come hungry and enjoy an evening of fine dining right here in Oklahoma’s Spaceport.  The Boy Scouts are holding their annual Fall Feast in the fellowship hall.  If you have never been to this event before, you have been missing the finest meal in town.  If you didn’t know, our church is the sponsor for the local Boy Scout Troop.  We always have a good turnout, so make sure to get your reservation in early.  The price for this meal is $12.50 per person and to-go orders are available in case you need to get home to watch OU make steaks out of Bevo in the Red River Rivalry.  Get your tickets from Gerald Stegall or one of the Boy Scouts.

BEEN THINKIN’ ‘BOUT IT, BUT…   The words but and if or its first cousin, if only, are faith killers.  How many times do you think, I ought to teach that class or I feel called to stop by and just say hello to that person only to persuade yourself not to by the words but or if.  If only I wasn’t so rushed today.  I would teach that class, but I don’t feel qualified.  If I knew it wouldn’t bother them.  If this was a perfect world, I would be glad to help out with that.  How can we expect our faith to grow when we don’t stick our necks out just a little and do something that might be out of our comfort zone. 

Do you know that most people that hear about a self-help book won’t buy it or check it out from the library.  Of those that do, the majority won’t read it.  Of the few that read it, the majority won’t try what is recommended.  Why?  It’s plain and simple fear.  Fear of failure is the most notable culprit, but its lesser know sidekick is fear of success.  Both take us out of our comfort zone.  Remember God did not give us a spirit of fear or timidity.  He gave us a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.  If you want to fear, then fear God.  As the proverb says, this is the beginning of wisdom. 

That all sounds good on Sunday when I’m sitting in the pew, but how do I put it into action.  Well, the next time you think you are called to do something for God, do it without applying your secular judgment to it.  If you feel called to substitute for a Sunday school teacher, don’t talk yourself out of it by saying, ‘those kids will get the best of me,’ or ‘I couldn’t do that.”  If God is calling you, consider that you are not second-guessing yourself.  You are second-guessing God.  We are pretty good second-guessers in this country.  We second-guess wars, hurricanes, three and one pitches, what we wear to work, and going for it on 4^th down.  Second-guessing has become our second-nature.  Our first nature needs to be faith.  That is, we should respond to God’s call in the affirmative and then work out the details.  I know that this drives your secular mind crazy, but Jesus didn’t say, ‘think it over and follow me if after you run it through a cost-benefit analysis, it seems to make sense.’  He didn’t say, ‘you might want to get a second opinion on that.’  He said, “Follow Me.” 

Do you want to respond to God’s word?  Stop second-guessing him.  Live a day without the words but and if.  Make your answers yes and no.  I believe it was Henry David Thoreau that once said the greatest tragedy of people’s lives is not that they die, but that their music dies within them.  God is calling us to share our music with the world.  When he calls, just say, ‘yes Lord’ and let him reveal an abundance that you have been afraid to experience before. 

NOTES FROM THE SEPTEMBER SESSION MEETING.  The session met on the evening of 16 September 2007.  In attendance were Gene Reeves, Phil Delp, Larry Walker, Carolyn Murray, Dana Ellis, and Tom Spence.  Reports of each committee were reviewed and recommendations to upgrade the bathrooms in the manse, remove the rat poison from the church (and replace it with something that children couldn’t ingest), hold a work day at the church on the 29^th of September, and split the monthly budget for the grade school youth between the two groups that had been formed for Wednesday night youth activities were approved.  The session also decided not to hold F-4 on the 31^st of October.  The session further approved the mission committee’s recommendation to propose to the other churches that the community Thanksgiving Service be held the evening of 11 November 2007.

A schedule to collect and distribute food and gifts for Thanksgiving was proposed by the missions committee and approved by the session.  The schedule has been provided to other churches for consideration.  The proposed dates are:

Thanksgiving Baskets

 7   October      Announce in all churches/Start food drives and identifying needy families

11 November    Recommended date for Community Thanksgiving Service

18 November   All food collected staged in CPC Fellowship Hall

19 November   Sort Food and Prepare Baskets (much help needed)

20 November   Distribute food baskets (West CPC loading area)

 Christmas Baskets and Angel Tree Gifts

 25 November   Angel Gift names given to churches

16 December   Angel Gifts turned in and delivered to CPC

21 December   Sort food and prepare food baskets (help needed)

22 December   Sort Gifts and stage by family

23 December   Distribute food baskets and Angel Gifts (West CPC loading area)

28 December   Christmas Break meal—open to all in our community that are hungry.

If you were thinking that the session meeting is just another boring meeting to sort out church business details, you would be partially right.  We review minutes, compare our spending against our budget, review and approve committee reports, decide if we need to move the rat poison or take the trash out more often, and other details that impact the daily, monthly, and annual business of the church.  This is, however, the least of the things that take place in these meetings.  Every meeting begins with an elder's devotion with time for meditation, consideration, and discussion by all in attendance.  The session concludes its monthly meeting kneeling at the altar in the sanctuary.  Each session member and every visitor is given the chance to pray.  It is this spiritual part of these meetings that is the real business of the session and the church.

 Veterans Day Service.  We are asking all of our veterans to make a special effort to attend the traditional service on November 11^th.  Those on active duty or in the reserve are asked to wear their service uniform.  We would like to recognize you and have special prayers for our service men and women around the world. 

Loaves and Fishes.  The Love Loaf program has been replaced by the Loaves and Fishes program.  The intent is still the same--to feed hungry people in our community and especially in parts of the world where people can't see past hunger to hope.  Many of you have probably sponsored a child through World Vision or a similar organization or have been reluctant to do so because of the recurring monthly commitment.  This program takes up an annual offering from churches and this year will be feeding people in Dafur, Sudan.   So if you wanted to help some hungry people without making a long term commitment to a single child or getting locked into a monthly payment, then this avenue of giving may be just what you have been looking for.  Look for the loaves to be handed out in the near future.  We can make a difference with our donations--the biggest difference is in our own hearts when we give to the least of these.  Read more...

JOIN US FOR F-4

It sounds like a powerful tornado.  In fact there is a flurry of activity at the church on Wednesday nights this fall.  What?  You say you just can't squeeze in another activity during the week.  We make this easy.  Show up at 6:00 pm to a meal that has been prepared with care earlier that day.  Enjoy the fellowship of our church family.  Stay for one of the many groups that meet after the meal.  You have already heard about the men's group studying the Purpose Driven Life, but did you know that the younger elementary group just had a Johnny Appleseed activity and the older elementary children may make care packages for the troops.  The junior-senior high youth always have something exciting in the works and the women's bible study always draws a big crowd so I'm sure that God is calling this group to do great things.  Here's the amazing part.  You might just barely drag yourself into our Wednesday night meal and programs, but you will leave recharged.  Come enjoy the paradox of having more energy when you leave than when you arrived!

Got News?

Have you always wanted to be the star reporter for the New York Times?  Have you ever dreamed of writing the story of the year for Time Magazine?  The answer to both of those questions can be "NO" and you can still have something to offer this newsletter.  If you have news pertaining to our church family (birth announcements, wedding announcements, or just something special to share), then you should submit it for inclusion in the church newsletter or church website.  Have you written a devotion or inspirational poem?  We have a devotions section on our website. Do you have some photos of that new baby, the last church lock-in, or something that happened at camp?  We have a memories section on the website.

If you just need to announce something to our extended church family, send the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of it to Tom Spence and look for it to be published in short order.

Show Your Colors!  Some folks have been asking about the colors of the banners that we display in the sanctuary.  They correspond to the church year.  What is the church year?  Well here is an article from over two years ago that answers just that question.  

Women's Bible Study Invites Church to Box with Them! Not that kind of boxing.  Shoe boxing!  Last year the women's bible study participated in Franklin Graham's shoe box ministry.  The ladies filled up 13 shoe boxes with school supplies, hygiene items, sox, small toys, hair bows and the like.  Florence Mabry and Liz Lineau delivered them to the state drop site.  This year, the women's class invites the entire church to participate.  The ladies will have more information soon, but this sounds like something we can all get excited about.  Many of us have sponsored one, two, or even more children with Angel Tree gifts; yet in the midst of our abundance, we feel called to give something more.  Here is that exact opportunity. I knew that I had been saving those empty shoe boxes for something!   Do you already know that you want to be a part of this!

Become God's Love in Action!

Search Committee Update

The most accurate assessment of our current search status is that we are searching.  The committee had good exchanges with the first four applicants to be considered.  None of these appeared to be the right pastor for our church at this time.  The committee has since reviewed additional personal information forms and is continuing the search.  It's important to remember that we are not looking for a pastor.  We are looking for the right pastor for our church at this time.  Whether the search continues for another month, year, or decade; the charge to all of us is to pray for the members of our search committee, pray for our next pastor to hear the call to our church, and most certainly, to encourage each other every day.

 You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Matt 5:14-16 (NIV)
 

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