Elois Clegg, widow of a former pastor, will celebrate her 90th birthday on Tuesday, May 28. Her address is: WNC Baptist Home, 213 Richmond Hill Drive, Asheville NC 28806. Let us give her a “Shower of Blessings”!
UCM Fundraiser at Krismart Fashions
Krismart Fashions at 56 East Main Street (beside Kelsave) is again sponsoring a FUNDRAISER FOR UNITED CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES.
For A $10 donation, you can receive 50 percent off any 1 item at Krismart. Your purchase must be made on Thursday, May 31 or Friday, June 1 only. Sale hours will be 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on both days. LIMIT 1 TICKET PER CUSTOMER. THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING UNITED CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
-Jesus, Matthew 6:22-23
Not too long ago, a major telecommunications giant inadvertently made the search history of over half a million people available to the public. According to Tim Challies, this data contained over 21 million internet searches.
The company responsible for this breach of privacy claimed that they had changed the users’ personal information, but it didn’t take long for hackers to decrypt the account holders’ identities.
One can easily deduce what was discovered.
The leaked data showed that people live separate lives—one public and one private. As Challies puts it, one could “reconstruct a person’s life, at least in part, from what they searched for over a period of time.” The author of The Next Story reflects, “What is remarkable is the way people transition seamlessly from the normal and mundane to the outrageous and perverse.”
Our collective ability to be exposed to whatever we wish for or desire raises a unique challenge. But being able to access this world of information, images and far-reaching content in secret, without accountability, can have lethal consequences for our families, our communities and ultimately our souls.
Who can argue with Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount? “If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
What we see and what we are exposed to affects us. If what we look at is darkness, our true selves will be pitch as night. Alternatively, if we surround ourselves with sources of light, we will be true to Christ’s commandment that we are to be the light of the world. As one of our staff members recently shared, Jesus’s warning to us here in Matthew 6 reminds him of the admonition from the early days of computer technology: garbage in, garbage out. That is, if you put trash into a system you can expect a similar outcome.
As Jesus’s teaching to the crowds in Galilee highlights, this is not a new phenomenon. However, our 21st-century reality creates a new wrinkle. Unlike any other time in human history, you, me, our children and our grandchildren have access to a galaxy of information with a touch of a finger. It once took great resolve and courage to find and research the things that we were curious about and/or desired. Now we can have immediate access to it with little personal risk all within a fraction of a moment. Our technological prowess and ability to access whatever we wish to learn about or see pours gasoline on Jesus’s observation. Our personal devices enable our eyes to be overwhelmed by darkness. And this, in turn, has a cost.
Oh, it’s worse than you think, y’all.
Members of the House Intelligence Committee recently released the roughly 3,500 Facebook ads that were created by a foreign-based entity to influence domestic politics. How did they do it? They created and posted content that made its way on to social media. The content was divisive to say the least. The posts highlighted issues that tear the fabric of our communities apart. They played on fears and terrors of personal safety. They initiated racial and ethnic suspicions. They demonized people groups and sowed seeds of discord in an attempt to divide the American people.
Those who created this content were far more successful than we want to give them credit for. No, I’m not talking about a particular political outcome. I’m talking about the hate that these ad buys yielded. I’m talking about the anger that the images and stories prompted. I’m talking about how our exposure to these messages made us collectively less and less like Christ.
What we see and what we are exposed to can have devastating effects on us. It can lead to infidelity to the ones we love and pervert our sensibilities. What our eyes see and what our ears hear can lead us into the ever-present temptation to damn one another and to create walls between us that prevent us from loving our neighbors. The entertainment that we watch can normalize hate and justify terror. If we immerse ourselves in darkness, why would we be surprised that we’ve become what we see?
The remedy, of course, is easily attained. By being aware of the impact that information, images, and other content has on us, we can choose to limit our exposure to that which has the power to poison our souls. By setting boundaries on what our eyes see and what our ears hear—whether it’s the delicious gossip that is exchanged in the church parking lot, or the fringe news outlet that fuels discord—we can choose light over darkness. By choosing to be thoughtful with our spouses, co-workers, church family, and friends, we can place ourselves in environments that will make us more accountable to Christ’s expectations and commands.
Think about it now, because what seems unthinkable today may be commonplace tomorrow. If your entire digital footprint were exposed and made public, would you want your children to see it? How about your spouse? How about your employer?
Choose light over darkness. For our sake, if not your own.
A Note from Harold and Gwen Messer
To our loving church family,
Thank you for the cards, food, visits, phone calls, text messages, and most of all your prayers and love that you have shown to us during Harold's illness.
Love,
Harold and Gwen Messer
Knowing and Being Known
"When I walk down the street of my neighborhood in the inner city, I do not see thugs, delinquents, or terrorists. I see my friends, people I know. When we seek to know the other and understand who they are as people and we let ourselves be known and understood, it is virtually impossible to stereotype. You can't lump everyone together because you know the person and you know how that person is different from others you know. So the next time you see a person you would normally shy away from, just say hello. It will go a long way towards knowing and being known."
- Nell Green, CBF field personnel, Houston, Texas
Will you share your gifts with us?
The Pastoral Care Team is one of service, caring for elderly members who are homebound or in a nursing home. Our goal is to help alleviate loneliness and to let them know that they are being remembered by their church. We send cards, visit, and make phone calls. We need your help. There will be a brief meeting immediately after church on Sunday, May 20 in the 3rd-floor conference room where you can see how to put your gifts to work. If you have questions, call Shirley Kool at 586-5066 or e-mail at kooldean_nc76@frontier.com.
Welcoming Our New Church Members!
The Brysons have been a part of our church for quite some time, and now they are officially church members! Please join us in welcoming Jason, Melanie, Ellie, and Macie Bryson to our church family!
Welcoming Our New Church Members!
Please join us in welcoming our new church members, Dan and Carol Cloer! Carol has been with us as our Youth Minister, and her brother Dan has been attending regularly with her as well. We are so happy to have them as a part of our church!
The Place of Our Resurrection: How Christianity Took Root in Ireland and Bore Fruit Throughout the World
“Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account…I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.”
Thus begins the Gospel according to Luke. Ever the thoughtful physician, Luke sets out to tell the story of Jesus Christ after carefully investigating the sources and eyewitnesses that were privy to the Son of God. And he does so in scintillating fashion.
Listen for it:
“In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.”
Okay, dazzling writing it is not. But it is accurate, and helpful because Luke grounds his storytelling in historical fact. He is reporting to his benefactor—and to us--that Jesus’s life and ministry happened in real time and in history. The takeaway? The only way to understand Jesus is to understand him in the context of real events. Jesus is no parable. Jesus was for real.
I, too, have tried to offer an orderly account of all that I have learned these last few months. Like Luke, I have sought to carefully investigate the sources that tell the story of a faithful people in a land across the ocean at a time of challenge and difficulty. I have read about this ancient people and have studied their mythologies and examined what daily life must have been like for them. With my family, I traveled to this distant land and walked the paths of saints and sinners alike. I touched centuries old relics and explored monastic cities that are but ruins in a wild landscape. I went on pilgrimage. I reflected on the wisdom of heralded saints. I prayed in ‘thin places.’ I marveled at the beauty of the land. I found the place of my resurrection. And I want to tell you all about it.
To do so, I’ll need to start at a place in history that feels exotic and unfamiliar. Beginning Wednesday night, May 9th at 6:00 PM in our Mission and Fellowship Center, I will begin the story of the Celtic Christian tradition with a presentation about the people of the British Isles. We will learn about the tribal, warrior-like people. We will learn about their love of the land and of song and of storytelling.
The following Wednesday, May 16th, we will learn about Ireland’s first bishop, St. Patrick, and the evangelization of the Celtic people. We will try to discern fact from fiction and hold the Saint’s own words with a special weight as we demythologize his role and leadership.
On May 23rd, we will hear how the Gospel caught fire among the people of Ireland and transformed a warrior class into a devout and faithful people who lived out a new form of martyrdom.
On May 30th, we will tiptoe into the ruins of Ireland’s monastic cities to consider how the Irish chose to be church together.
On June 6th, we will conclude our story of the Celtic Christian tradition by climbing into the round towers that dot the Irish landscape to see the changes that were on the horizon.
Ultimately, my presentations will blend my research on Celtic Christianity with my family’s travel adventures into a seven-century journey of discovery that may just give us insight and illumination on how we can more effectively be church today.
I felt a great sense of solidarity with a Cloud of Witnesses who had traveled the same path I hiked when I sojourned to the summit of Croagh Patrick. It was there that I walked a trail that hundreds of thousands of faithful had walked over the last two millennia. It’s hard to put into words what that felt like.
In the coming Wednesdays, however, I will try.
