Pastor’s Blog

I have an old scab which last bothered me about two years ago, but has never completely healed, and for reasons not perfectly clear to me, it was painfully re-opened today.

OK, that’s a metaphor. The reality behind the metaphor is that I easily get pretty upset with the Christian sub-culture when I see how little we make of Easter.

Think about this. We devote nearly two full months to the preparation and celebration of Christmas. We completely empty our social and program calendars from the Sunday before Christmas to the Sunday after New Year’s so that we can celebrate and travel and be together as families.

But what about Easter? Do we cancel anything – even one event, one class, one game, one commitment – to give ourselves time to prepare for and celebrate what is really the central holiday of our faith? Two years ago I insisted that the classes that meet at Trinity shut down during Easter week. This year I forgot to do that – so on they go. Next year I’ll remember – but I’ll probably get some resistance.

Now you will argue that it is our culture that makes so much of Christmas and so little of Easter. And that’s true. But what law says that we have to agree with the culture’s emphasis? In fact if we’re only celebrating Christmas because the culture does we might as well stop, because our culture as a whole has very little idea what Christmas is about and very little Christ in Christmas. We would show more integrity if we boycotted Christmas and made sacrifices to be able to celebrate Easter.

Now don’t get me wrong. I like Christmas, I love the Incarnation, and I think it is well worth celebrating. In fact I think believers ought to celebrate Christmas and be involved in all the hoopla because we have the message of truth behind all the fluff – the truth of ‘God with us!’.

But what about Easter? What about ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us?’ What about ‘God demonstrates his love for us in this – while we were still sinners Christ died for us?’ What about “He is not here – he is risen as he said!” What about ‘This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him?’

Isn’t the truth of Easter worthy of as much of our time, effort and energy as the truth of Christmas? Isn’t it worth setting aside some time in the next ten days to think and pray and meditate and to join with others in rejoicing about these things? Isn’t it worth taking something off your plate so you can celebrate Jesus with heart, soul, mind and strength?

But it’s just a rant – don’t let me interrupt your busy Spring schedule.

After Becky Casselberry’s wedding, Gail and I had the chance to take the family to Yampa, Colorado, to spend a few days in the mountains in the snow. Our accommodations in Yampa were provided through a ministry called En Gedi Retreat. En Gedi’s mission is to provide a place where pastors, missionaries, and church workers around the country can take a little time off, a little time to reconnect with God, and a little time reconnect with their families. Currently En Gedi has no facilities of its own, though they are in the process of completing a cabin as the first step toward their own retreat center.

But in the meantime they use, as available, a wonderful lodge on the Fish and Cross Ranch just outside of Yampa. This 4000 acre ranch is owned by a believer and is used for hunting and raising cattle. The lodge is used by both secular and Christian groups for hunting trips, ranch experience trips, business planning conferences and get-aways. Because we booked early and came during a relatively slow part of the season, ‘Fish and Cross’ was able to offer the lodge to En Gedi (and to us) for the week at no cost. What a blessing!

We had a grand time:

(click on any image for a full-size, 1600×1200, version)

This is the view east from the lodge at Fish and Cross Ranch at sunrise. This was the view Gail and I saw from our bedroom windows.

This is the view south, from just below the lodge. The red barn is classic. The horses remain in the pasture all year, even through the worst storms of winter.

This is the view west (or south-west) from the deck of the lodge. The high flat mountain is one of the Flattops, the unique mountain range in this part of Colorado.

This is the Lodge at Fish and Cross. It is a beautiful Western themed building with seven bedrooms. Gail and I stayed in the corner top floor bedroom, the closest room in the picture, with large windows facing east and south.

We did a lot of sledding during our four day stay. Hannah and Ruth especially enjoyed getting out in the snow. This is the view from the hill ‘behind the barn’ down at the ranch complex.

Fish and Cross is a working ranch and they have to feed the horses every day. During the winter they hook the draft horses up to the sled and haul hay out into the pasture. The family (including Caroline Casselberry, who joined us on Tuesday) went on the sled early one morning. Michael loved it and went again the next day.

The Ranch graciously supplied snow shoes, and Nick, the son-in-law of the ranch owner, took us on a wonderful three hour trek into the aspen forest.

Another feature of the Ranch is the cowboy hot tub. While drilling for oil some years back, they discovered a hot spring over 1000 feet down. It is 105 degrees F all year. They have dug and lined a small pool where you can sit in the warm water (then cool your feet in the snow). They recommended going at night, but we opted for a daytime visit.

But the things that captured and blessed the eyes while we were there were the snow-enhanced views. We’ve been to Colorado in the summer, but never while there was snow, and it was wonderfully beautiful.

On March 14th we (the DeGray family, less Abbie and Tim, plus others) attended Becky Casselberry’s wedding to Adam Mitchell.  The Casselberry’s attended Trinity a number of years ago before moving to Bartlesville, OK, and have remained close friends.

The wedding was in Littleton, Colorado, near Denver, where Becky and Adam live and work.  Here are a few pictures.

The Bridal Party

The Bride and Groom

Pi

As many DeGrays as we could assemble

I’ve had a couple of questions lately about special giving to benevolence or missionaries and want to post a few brief comments on those subjects.

First, regarding benevolence.  We give fairly substantial amounts of money to help people in need, both inside and outside the church.  The church budget provides the first $400 a month of this money, but much more is needed to meet even some of the needs around us.  Much of what we spend comes in the form of designated giving, checks or envelopes that are marked ‘benevolence’.  We use these gifts where most needed, but you can also suggest a use when you make the donation and we will almost always honor your suggestion. (For tax deductibility reasons, the final decision about disbursement must be the church’s).

Sometimes we don’t hear about needs in the body because people are reluctant to make their needs known. If you have a need or become aware of a need, please let us know about it. God has been very faithful over the years to provide for known needs.

Second, regarding missionary giving.  We regularly support around ten missionaries or missionary organizations with monthly gifts from our missions budget, which was $30,000 last year. However, there is not a lot of slack in the budget for meeting special needs our missionaries might have, such as the recent needs of the Morrows after the lightning strike at the orphanage. We rely on the response of the body to do our part in meeting those needs. If you designate a specific missionary on a check or envelope, we will forward that money to the missionary with our next monthly gift.  This kind of giving has been a tremendous blessing to our missionaries.