Friday, November 23, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Day was a marvelous miracle! Through the urging of God and the willingness of the youth group (ChUMY, Chino United Methodist Youth) and the faithfulness of our Youth Director, Steve Cuadras, God brought together a whole bunch of caring people and loads of donated food and money to offer a free Thanksgiving meal to anyone who wanted it. It was wonderful to see all of the people come to offer themselves for the sake of others. The generosity exceeded the expressed need, in that fewer people came for a meal than we had anticipated.

But the real miracle was the out-pouring of people--CUMC members and people from other churches and the community at large--who came together to give of themselves for the sake of others on a holiday that is traditionally kept for families. The family of God was truly present and accounted for!

Afterward, when the Social Hall was cleaned up and the food packaged up, Steve and I drove out to Ontario to the "tent city" where hundreds of homeless folks are living, and delivered the left-over food for them to enjoy.

It was a good day. Thanks be to God!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Waiting

I am sitting in the waiting area (aptly named) of the DMV office in Pomona while my daughter takes the written test for a driver’s license. I’m the father of three teenagers (although one, Nathan, turns 20 this week), so I am used to waiting. We wait a lot, don’t we? In fact, despite the busy-ness of our lives, we spend a LOT of time just waiting!

As a church, we are waiting for our sanctuary to be rebuilt. And we’ve only just begun to wait. As a culture, we are beginning a season of waiting in line, waiting at stop lights, waiting for the mall to change their Musak tape: ChristmasShoppingTide!

But the time spent waiting does not have to be wasted time. I’m writing my article for the Tidings on my laptop computer while waiting at the DMV. Sometimes, I take a book to read while waiting. Often I make phone calls. But sometimes I just take the opportunity to think and pray. The worse thing I could do is sit around and do nothing.

Advent is a time of waiting: Mary waiting for her child to be born, Simeon waiting for the Savior to come, angels rehearsing while waiting for the Good News of a Great Joy to be proclaimed, the world waiting for God to make right what humanity had messed up, little Johnny and Becky waiting for what Santa will bring them this year, a lot of waiting.

But let’s do our waiting right! During Advent, let us wait with expectation. Let us wait with anticipation. Let us ponder in our hearts what God is about to do, again for the first time. Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas. Let’s not jump into Christmas too quickly! I invite you to a holy waiting room.

Advent Blessings!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Greetings!

Welcome! I'm glad you found your way to my new blog! I have done some blogging before, but now I want to try my hand at doing more. Here you will find my musings, rantings, pontifications and other "ings!" I know; just what you always wanted!

Plus, I plan to post my sermons (I do extended outlines) here, so if you miss them live and in person, you can always catch them here! Wow! Such a DEAL!

For now, I'm going to allow comments. But if the spammers get too obnoxious (and what spammers aren't?), I may have to disallow comments. Let's pray they leave us alone!

But I would like to hear from you if you have thoughts or ideas, or want to suggest something for me to blog about. Just go to our church website (www.chinoumc.org) and send me an email, or leave a comment here.

I'm looking forward to this! Now, I just have to think of something to blog about...