Cross Creek Church Blog

My Grammy and Mamaw

My mamaw

[Written by Shawndee Lovoy]

I have been so blessed to have my two grandmothers into my adult life.  Both of my grandmothers met and had a sweet relationship with my husband Jason, and our 4 children, Isaac, Juliette, James and Mary Rose.  My Grammy (left of me in red) was a precious woman who was married to my Papaw over 65 years, raised 7 children- 5 of which are still living, and taught school most of her life.  She went to be with Jesus about 3 years ago.   My Mamaw (right of me in blue) just went to live with Jesus at the end of December.  She was married to my Papaw over 60 years, raised 4 children, and taught school most of her life also.  We had just spent an amazing week together at my parents house in Nashville, where we shared Christmas morning, games, meals, stories, and lots of love.  Christmas was always our holiday with Mamaw and I thank Jesus that He gave us the honor of spending Mamaw’s last Christmas on earth with her.  It was a hard loss, very sudden, us having had lunch with her just a few hours before.  It was my children’s first real experience with loss of someone they truly knew and loved.  I am only 1 of 10 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren that my Mamaw had.  I decided I would regret it forever if I didn’t speak at her funeral.  I was very scared and didn’t want to cry but I wanted to honor Mamaw in that way and let everyone know what she meant to me.  So, I wrote it all down, got up and read it.  I choked up a few times but I made it through.  I want to share with you about my Mamaw.  Even these few words don’t give this precious woman justice but it’s enough to give you an idea.  Meet Mamaw.

My Mamaw-

When I think of Mamaw I think…

1) sourdough bread- she would let me dig out the entire middle if I wanted too

2) biscuits and gravy- which I loved until I watched her make it once, then I could never eat it again!

3) cows and lightening bugs

4) sleepovers in the living room with all my cousins

5) playing in the basement and the hot tub

6) parafin wax

7) Christmas

8) shopping

9) letters

I think I wrote every paper in school about who I admired most on Mamaw.  The amazing thing about Mamaw is that I think all of her 10 grandchildren each thinks they were her favorite in some way or another.  That’s what her love did.  It made me feel SPECIAL, WANTED, AND IMPORTANT.

Even though I never lived even in the same state as Mamaw I could always feel her love all those miles away.  It was bigger and longer than all the miles between us.

I’m forever grateful that Mamaw was there for the birth of all 4 of my children.  She came to Birmingham after each of their births, stayed with us about a week,  and did what Mamaw does…she rocked, she sang, she read, she played, she cooked, she loved.  She too made each of my 4 children, just a few of her 21 great- grandchildren feel SPECIAL, WANTED, AND IMPORTANT.

Mamaw loved us all so well.  She has taught me so much about how I want to love.  We were so blessed to have her in our lives for so long.  She is and will always be greatly missed.

Now I have new thoughts to think of when I think of Mamaw.  “Absent in the body, present with the Lord.”  Mamaw is HOME.  She has had her glorious reunion with Papaw and all her loved ones gone before her.  She’s with JESUS.  I imagine she and Jesus are becoming best friends as we speak.  I’ve been singing this old hymn since Mamaw went to heaven. “When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.  When we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory.”

 

Love,

Shawndee Lovoy

 

 

 

hands, raised hands, questions

“I Have a Question…”

[Written by Ben Halbrooks]

“I have a question…”

“Yes?”

“We talk about the Bible a lot, but why do we trust the Bible? …What I mean is, how do we know the Bible is true?”

I love teaching students, because you never quite know what they’ll say next. They keep me on my toes. They sharpen me, they challenge me. They keep me grounded. And when it comes right down to it, they aren’t afraid to ask tough questions.

The exchange above was one of those moments – and it became the inspiration for a multi-month series on the reliability of scripture. It was a question that many in the room shared. It required more than a sound-byte answer. It was a great question. And it’s a question that all of us need to ask. If we take our faith seriously, if we make our faith our own – not our parents’, not our pastor’s, not our youth leaders’ – we need to know why we believe what we believe.

Sometimes we fatigue of asking questions. We grow up and get set in our ways. We become complacent. We think: Is this a dumb question? Or we just distract ourselves with the radio, with a game, with a phone, with a million diversions that push our deeper questions about life and purpose and meaning and love and truth and God to the backs of our minds. (Ever wonder why it’s often late at night that we have those nagging thoughts? Maybe it’s because we’ve finally switched off all the noise.)

There’s something I tell my students – and myself – all the time: Never stop asking questions. Authentic spiritual questions (not the disingenuous trick questions of the Pharisees) should be asked. Our God invites it. In Matthew 7:7-8, Jesus himself encourages this of his followers: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Deuteronomy 4:29 says the same: “Seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” In his famous address on the Areopagus (Acts 17), Paul urges the Athenians who worshipped “the unknown god” that they “should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us.” God is knowable, and He delights to reveal Himself to us: “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” (Jeremiah 33:3) What an invitation!

Not once in scripture did Jesus turn away someone who called out and genuinely sought to follow him. There were many who turned away of their own accord, out of idolatry or fear or something else. But think! How many people did Jesus pass by who never called to him? Don’t let that be you. Ask. Seek. Knock. Don’t lose your appetite for seeking the truth – because that road will ultimately lead you to Him.

Our Lord doesn’t always give easy answers or fax a crystal clear vision of our future down to us. But He hears us, and He promises to answer His people. He gives us glimpses and asks us to follow. “A glimpse is not a vision,” C.S. Lewis admits, “But to a man on a mountain road by night, a glimpse of the next three feet of road may matter more than a vision of the horizon.”

Would a Person Die for a Lie?

We have stepped a little out of the box this season at Cross Creek Church. In order to finish up our sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians, which began in August, we have been looking at chapter 15, about the resurrection, in the middle of advent season. In one sense advent is decidedly about the incarnation, not the resurrection, or the crucifixion, for that matter. But as we lay hold of even the most fundamental Christian teaching, we know that all three form the central links in the chain of our salvation.

As we know, the incarnation, Jesus fully-God, and fully-man, is essential to the good news (Gospel) message of Christianity. In order to reconstitute humanity, enable us to resist sin and provide redemption, Jesus had to be fully God. In order to highlight how personal God’s love is, serve as a substitute for all of us who deserve the wrath of God, and function as the “pioneer” of the resurrection, Jesus had to be fully man. But whether we consider the incarnation or the resurrection or the crucifixion, Christians believe, with very good reason, not blindly, that these monumental realities are also historical events. In fact they must be or they are ultimately meaningless.

Christianity is distinctive from belief systems which are merely life philosophies or spiritual ideas, because it is grounded in the historicity of the redemptive events recorded in the Bible, performed in space and time by Jesus Christ. This is why in 1 Corinthians 15, the early church leader, Paul, says that if the resurrection is not true, then we who profess the Christian faith should not only all go home, but also should be pitied for believing something which offers no actual hope or salvation.

It reminds me of a poignant series of questions a seminary professor of mine, shared with our class. The first is this, “Would a person die for a lie?” Yes, sometimes people do. But not that many. People might profess a lie or proclaim lies, but when it comes to giving their life for it, the field is narrowed. The second is, “Would a person die for a lie, which he knows is a lie?” The field just got very slender. I suppose if someone wanted to pass along a life insurance inheritance to her struggling family she might give up her life, knowing that the cause for which death comes is false. Likewise with a mercenary soldier perhaps. Islamic terrorists don’t fit this category, though, because they believe they will go to heaven. Which leads to the third question, “Would a person die for a lie, which he knows is a lie, but that would not profit him anything?” It is tough to imagine anyone who would do this.

What does this have to do with the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection? As Paul says at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, many people witnessed Jesus as resurrected. And we know from historical accounts that almost every one of the 12 disciples, plus Paul, died horrific deaths. So, if the Christian teaching on these central acts of Jesus Christ was contrived by the early apostles, they would have known that it was untrue. Even if none would have blown the whistle on the scam, certainly not all of them would have maintained their belief to the point of death, particularly in light of the fact that if the Christian belief is not true, it does not profit Christians after they die?

“Proving” Christianity true is not like a mathematical or scientific formula, but it is a lot like a courtroom trial. When we see the evidence for its veracity, we have to take a look at its life transforming message, and ask ourselves, “What does this truth mean for me?” “What am I doing to understand it and live in it?”

If you found this discussion engaging you may also enjoy reading the following from Timothy George of Beeson Divinity, which ties in and also relates to the current crisis in the Middle East.

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/11/after-dinner-a-beheading

 

Reflection, then Press On

seagullsW2During this busy time of year, it is hard to take time out to reflect on the year. We are too overwhelmed, rushing to purchase stuffings for the stockings and gifts to place under the Christmas tree, lists to check twice; then, before we know it, the New Year rolls in, with those resolutions already broken.

So, it has been helpful for me, and perhaps will be for you as well, to take a moment to reflect about several developments this past year in our church community, from the perspective of office manager and ministry admin assistant.

1) Land Closing and Events – In March we closed on land which we trust God will use to bless and serve our community. Then in May, we held our first Worship Service Celebration on the land, concluding with an outdoor picnic lunch. This fall we had our first fundraiser, “Horticulture Heaven,” with all proceeds supporting our land fund. Now, at year’s end, we are making good progress to paying off the land! We thank the Lord for all He had done to accomplish this, and how He worked through the generosity of so many of you.

2) Missionary Send-off – This year we sent off our first home-grown missionary family, Derek and Laura Dougherty, MTW/Peru. Through our prayers, support and co-sponsoring “Music for Missions Benefit Concert & Auction”, we are thankful that we could be part of their “‘key moments” that God orchestrated in their lives calling them into the mission field.
(http://afewkeymoments.blogspot.com/p/about-us_7.html)

3) New and Improved Website – This year we introduced to you our new brighter, more navigable, mobile-friendly website, http://www.crosscreekchurch.net. The website was designed for both the new visitor and the Cross Creek member/participant. Directly from the homepage you can quickly link to pages to learn who we are; what it means to “Grow in truth, Live in community, Serve in the kingdom;” when things are happening at Cross Creek Church; where and how to become connected. The homepage also highlights current events and photos of activities in our church community.

4) New Pathways for Financial Giving – We also researched and implemented systems for additional pathways of financial giving besides traditional check and cash. Now you can donate online directly from our website under the Contribute link on the homepage. By setting up an account you can contribute just one time or create recurring giving schedule, view your history for online giving, edit your profile. We also offer mobile app giving, by searching for and downloading “Shelby Next | Giving” from your app store. All these are done securely through Shelby Systems, Inc. cloud based program, “ShelbyNext Giving.”

5) Welcoming New Members – We host membership classes as needed throughout the year. It is a time to learn about the vision of Cross Creek and how to Grow, Live, Serve. This year we welcomed two classes. It is exciting to see how God is working in and through you, using your gifts and talents to grow His church.

We had several ‘firsts’ this year and expect more ‘firsts’ in the coming years. We continue with those tasks that make our church ‘run’, pressing on to the calling God has for each one of us.

Wearing many hats in our office, I am so thankful to be of help to our church family, always with the thought of how best to use our resources, in helping and serving our members and our community – all to God’s Glory!

“I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.” (Philippians 3:12-14, The Message)

Come Thou Fount

Here By Thy Great Help I’ve Come

“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is one of the best-known and most loved hymns for a reason. The text was written over 250 years ago, yet it is still as relevant today as it was then. Each of us, as Christians, can place our selves in the middle of the narrative and sing this hymn as if the words were our own. We desire to praise and worship God, yet recognizing our brokenness and inability to do it on our own we must rely on the help and grace of God to make it in our daily lives. The phrase “here by thy great help I’ve come” in the second verse is the theme woven throughout the entire text as we sing of our struggles with our own sinful nature and our daily encounter with the Gospel.

Hymns can be difficult because there are lots of words packed with even more meaning going by really fast. Often, we can skip over the depth of meaning in an effort to keep up with the music. For those unfamiliar with hymns, the richness of the poetry and language can be hard to decipher at first glance. So, we’re going to slow this one down and walk through it.

Come Thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, Mount of Thy redeeming love.

In the first verse, we ask for the Holy Spirit to come and help us to worship. God’s grace, mercy and redeeming love deserve praise, but we don’t know the song. We are asking the Spirit to “tune our hearts to sing Thy grace”; we want to sing the same song the angels in heaven are singing: “teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above”. Without help we are unable to worship.

What shall I render to the LORD
for all his benefits to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD.
Psalm 116:12-13, ESV

Here I raise my Ebenezer; Here by thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand’ring from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

The second verse begins with “Here I raise my Ebenezer;” a reference to 1 Samuel 7. The Israelites, with God’s prodigious help, have just defeated the Philistines. Samuel places a stone as a monument of the victory and called it “Ebenezer”, which means “Till now the Lord has helped us”. So, in this second verse, we raise our own “Ebenezer” in response to God’s grace to say “here by thy great help I’ve come”. We, like sheep, have wandered off. Jesus sought us and rescued us by his blood. We now hope to arrive safely at home in heaven.

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them,
does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country,
and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?
And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
Luke 15:4-5, ESV

O to grace how great the debtor daily I’m constrained to be;
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

Now, in the third verse, we are debtors, bought with a price we can never repay. We confess we are aware of our sinful natures and we realize our need for His help to not leave and wander away again. We ask the Lord, with his grace and goodness as a chain, to “bind my wandering heart to Thee” and “seal it for Thy courts above”; let our hearts ever be on things of God and not of this world.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God,
the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
Romans 6:22, ESV
Listen to “Come Thou Fount of Everything Blessing” as performed by the Hymn Collective.

 

 

Inner Dialogue

[By Holly Coble]
As Jim and I left to have a date the other night, we laughed about how Caroline parroted the often heard phrase: “I love you SO much…How much?…So much!” This is one of the phrases that we repeat over and over…. And it tickles my ears to hear her say it to us unprompted. After our parental giddiness subsided, we further discussed why these phrases are important. As we went down the rabbit trail of personal discovery, we talked about how we are not programming a machine to spit out an output unthinkingly or unfeelingly, but rather we are training her mind and heart to have an inner dialogue of truth. We want for her to be so certain of these truths that, when times get hard and she is uncertain of what is real, she knows this is true.

Likewise, God has instructed us to plant seeds of His Truth in our minds and hearts through memorizing His Word.   This truth of His love, plans, and promises is unshakable and unwavering. As much as I want Caroline to know and trust me to love her unconditionally, I will fail her. But God never fails. And this Truth with a capital “T” is bedrock. Only on it and through it can I ever hope to love her as Christ has given me the ability.

As we talked about how we want her to have an inner dialogue of these parental truths, I had to ask myself, are we sufficiently teaching her God’s truths of His love and promises to lean on? A child’s mind is fertile ground in which to plant the Word of the Lord!

Pastor’s Job Description – Super Star or Hired Hand?

As our church works its way this Fall through the letter which the early church leader, Paul, wrote to the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth, we’ve seen a church possessing much zeal coupled with considerable confusion. As a result the congregation in Corinth apparently struggled in a number of ways – everything from the nature of the resurrection, to the role of women in church leadership, to mishandling of the Lord’s Supper, and misunderstanding marriage, and even their sometimes haphazard application of Spiritual gifts.

As we see in 1 Corinthians 4, it also shaped their understanding of what a church leader, a pastor, or in the case of Paul, an Apostle, should look like. Ironically, underlying their competition over which pastor/teacher to align with – Paul, Apollos, Cephas, was on the one hand an elevation of human leadership beyond appropriate consideration, and on the other hand a neglect on the part of the people to actually heed and follow the sound things that any, and all, of those leaders might say.

As a pastor, it is a little awkward to talk about the role of the pastor.  Yet even if it was not the next thing in our journey thru 1 Corinthians, it would be a good thing to consider, so members of the congregation can be mindful and prayerful to help our leadership stay on track as a church, and so us pastors can be mindful of what our task is and is not. As always, Paul seeks to correct their perspective by pointing them and us, to Jesus, and drawing a contrast between what we might call the Super Star and the Hired Hand pastor.

I’m grateful to Rev. Tom Cannon, for the seed of thought that I hope will bear fruit in today’s sermon, having heard him preach a message on this passage a number of years ago, where he drew this contrast.

I scarcely need to explain what I mean by Super Star pastor, and even in using the term I want to be careful not to be motivated by some jealousy I might have of other pastor’s skills. Indeed in some sense Martin Luther, George Whitfield, Charlie Spurgeon, and Billy Graham, could be called Super Star pastors in terms of their mass appeal. When I talk about the super star pastor, I’m referring more to the pastor who gains acclaim and following, not by force of the Holy Spirit in his ministry but by careful packaging of ministry strategies, skillful presentation of personal appearance and persona, that is not always rooted in readiness to boldly proclaim all the God’s Word has to say. The Super star has a lot of outward force to his ministry, but frequently lacks depth of character, sincere shepherding, and seems to have little place in his life or Gospel for sacrifice and suffering.

Likewise, when I speak of the Hired Hand pastor, I do not want to disparage the calling of other folks like me, who pastor small to medium sized congregations, and have little fame or notoriety. There is no shame in that. And in fact a pastor of a large church might operated as more of a hired hand. But instead I reference the Hired Hand as someone who might care deeply for the individual sheep in his congregation, and might genuinely desire to serve the Lord, but who lack’s backbone to actually lead. Indeed in its saddest form the Hired Hand pastor has an implied agreement with the congregation or at least the lay leaders of the congregation. We will make sure you are provided for, and can do the pastoral care and even the preaching you would like, but only as long as you don’t rock the boat too much, or attempt to lead too decisively. If the Super Star pastor misunderstands sacrifice, the Hired Hand does not lay hold of ministry power granted by the Holy Spirit.

Obviously the Apostle Paul did not use these terms but the ministry approaches are underlying what he says in 1 Corinthians 4, where he calls for pastors and ministry leaders, as well as their congregations, to embrace this truth – Since Jesus comes with power and sacrifice, we should desire pastors to be trustworthy stewards of the mysteries of God.  What is your view of the pastor’s role?  What is your pastor’s view of it?

Cross : Crown : Creed

As I launch this new blog, it won’t surprise those familiar with our church name or my sons’ names, that I picked some “C” words for the title. The letters are convenient and consistent (there I go again!), but the meaning is really what I have on my heart and mind.

Cross – The Apostle Paul, in the book I am currently preaching through, declares that Christ crucified, is central to the Christian faith (1 Cor. 2:2). One of my favorite passages, 2 Corinthians 5:21, states that God made Christ, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. The Cross is where God the Son bears the punishment we all deserve and, more than that, gives us his good record of faithfulness, that we might be seen as righteous before a holy God. So the Cross is vital to understanding what God does for us.

But the Cross also describes how we live for God. Jesus called us to, take up our cross daily, and taught that whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for God (that is, entrusts it fully to Him), will save his life. The Cross is central to how we can pursue a transformed live as Christ-followers.

Crown – Jesus not only comes as Savior through the Cross, but wears a Crown as our Lord. Proverbs 3:5-6 has been dear to my heart since the King of Kings first laid ahold of my heart in salvation – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths”. When we realize our attempt to find our way in life on our own is futile, we will welcome the good commands of God, and his “easy” yoke as the best way for us, even if our soul defaults differently. So the Crown is vital to understanding what God does for us.

But the Crown also describes how we live for God. We have a new identity, we are crowned with a new status as Sons and Daughters of the King of Kings. For this reason, in his heavenly kingdom we will lay down those crowns at His feet, realizing that our high status is from Him, alone.

Creed – As we understand the Cross and the Crown, as they apply to Jesus and to us, we will grow in our belief. A creed is just an affirmation of faith. “I believe in Jesus” is a simple, but sound, creed. Some of our churches identify with certain historic statements of faith like the Apostles’ Creed or Nicene Creed. Other churches perhaps affirm Biblical truth but just never call it a creed. But God’s desire is that all of us be creedal in the way the late musician Rich Mullins expressed in one of his songs, “I believe, what I believe, is what makes me what I am. I did not make it, no it is making me.”

The truth about what Jesus has done, embraced through faith by followers of God, and lived out, is the Christian life. Cross. Crown. Creed.

Growing and Moving

Growing and Moving…Cross Creek Church recently celebrated all that God has done in and through our church family in the four years since we began.  Although the church exists wherever its members live and work and play, much of our meeting time has taken place at S. Shades Crest Elementary School.  As we have grown about fourfold since 2009, we are excited to move to a new Sunday meeting location at Deer Valley Elementary School.  God has opened the door for this move to a more visible location but has also given us a chance in the midst of our move, not only to look back but also to look forward to what He will do in the future.  We hope you will pray for us as we seek to glorify God by inviting all into God’s grace, and that you will join with us in whatever way God might be leading, to extend his Kingdom in our surrounding community and across the globe.