There’s a story that I’ve seen a few times coming via the
email traffic that I feel can be enhanced to fit our current community. The story goes something like this: There was
a faithful man who had just stopped coming to Sunday services. The pastor asked different people that he
knew the man was close to if he had gone on vacation or if they knew of
anything that might prevent him from attending church. None of his peers knew anything. So after a few more weeks the pastor decided
to “drop” in on him to see if he was okay.
The man greeted the pastor at the door and the pastor asked
if everything was okay. The man slowly
started to voice his displeasure with different aspects of the church service
and some issues with some of the people in leadership positions. He said “I just decided I needed some time to
pray about it and seek God’s will.” The
whole time the gentleman was voicing his views, the pastor just listened,
sitting next to the fire place. When the
man seemed to be finished the pastor didn’t say a word. They looked at each
other, the man expected the pastor to take a defensive view point, but he
remained silent for a minute. The pastor
then reached over to the fireplace “tools” and can grabbed the tongs. With them he grabbed a burning ember and
pulled it aside. Within a minute or so,
its flame had extinguished and became smoldering coal. The pastor looked back at the man and their
eyes locked. The man blinked and said “I
get the message, I’ll be back this coming Sunday.”
It’s not word for word of the original story, but I hope I
captured the essence of the message; “We need each other to keep our fire
burning, even in spite of each other’s imperfections.”
Now if we took the analogy a little farther, suppose we
moved all the flaming pieces apart from each other? Our fire would slowly die out, and if the
pieces were not moved back together the smoldering embers would soon turn cold
not giving off any heat or light.
If you ask any pastor about the effect that people who have
participated in the Emmaus weekend have had in their church, for the most part
they will tell you it has enhanced the life of the church. That is the intent of the Emmaus weekend, to
help us find our place in spreading the gospel message in our homes, community
and the world, where ever we feel we are called. An Emmaus weekend helps us to “listen” for
that calling.
If we don’t keep feeding the fire, it will slowly dwindle,
giving off little or no heat or light to south-west Michigan’s churches. I know we have our own churches to work in,
but if you had a training weekend for people in your church to attend, wouldn’t
you like it to be local and affordable to send those people who fit the
criteria?
The Woman’s spring walk is upon us in March (13-16), being
held at Marshall United Methodist Church, right off I-94 (exit 110,
south). Sharon Iron’s is our Auxiliary
Director; call her (616)450-0069. I pray
that she has to turn people away, no place to put them to sleep!
If you have a man in mind, consider sending
them to the Jackson Area Emmaus weekend event being held in February.
The pilgrim application form is on our website (www.kalamazooemmaus.org/DATES-Spring.htm)
Talk to those you know fit the profile, because Emmaus is not for
everyone. But if the person is looking
to search deeper, or just needs a time from the distractions to refocus their
journey with God, get them signed up.
Don’t let the fire burn out.
GLYASDI
Rocky
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