Church in a Grocery

In yesterday's Courier-Journal, Peter Smith wrote in his Faith and Works article about Portland Avenue Presbyterian Church relocating to the former Kroger grocery store building next to their old church structure.  Apparently a couple of years ago their historic sanctuary burned down, forcing their hand.  They've worshipped in a former Catholic church since, until now when they're ready to commence worship in their new space.  Besides worship and classroom space, they'll also have room for community meetings, a food bank, a clothing bank, etc.  Somehow out of ashes a great thing will happen for the Portland community.  It'll be different than what folks are used to at Portland Avenue Pres, but it sounds like it will be beautiful.

Our church at Drennon isn't located in a grocery, although there used to be one across the creek in the historic Drennon Springs area, as well as several other businesses, homes, a public school, three different hotels and a U.S. military institute.  Nowadays we still have lots of homes, but no more businesses right nearby, although the old grocery building is still there and you can peek in the windows.  Our church building is a beautiful, traditional, old-fashioned structure, built in 1852 and substantially renovated and restructured in the 1920s when Port Royal Christian shuttered and sent its bell tower and stained glass windows down the hill.  We have the same issues most older church buildings have, with constant talk of repairs, renovations, new coats of paint, needs for better restroom facilities, handicapped access, etc.  Our folks love our church building and take pride in its beauty and its use.  Although we're small we're thriving and lively, and the people can't be beat.

I mention our church and Portland Avenue Pres because my family has spent a lot of time in another "grocery church" the past few months:  Southeast Christian Oldham Campus.  We've been going there pretty often on Sunday nights for two reasons:  to fortify me as a pastor who can't really preach to himself, and to give our son JR access to a youth group that might have some familiar faces from the area where he lives in Oldham County.  The idea of attending a church where the sermon is piped in by satellite from their larger campus was very, very strange at first, and in fact it still is at times (my wife Harriet asked me tonight if Kyle Idleman was there or just a projection on the screen, because it looks eerily like he's there with us in the room).  What we've found, though, is not only fulfillment of the two reasons we came, but also connections to friends we didn't know we'd find there.

One of Harriet's close childhood friends is a member there, and has been taking her granddaughter there to get her into a good youth group after moving here from Canada.  A boy who Harriet and I have coached in baseball alongside JR just joined at Southeast, and I will baptize him there next month.  We're hoping to make a family connection there with the new study based on The Story, the new Bible novelization that's taking many churches by storm.  And I've been able to meet their pastor, Kurt Sauder, who began his life in ministry at a small country church like Drennon in Indiana.  Sometimes God presents us with more bountiful blessings than we could expect or certainly deserve.

All of this in a grocery.  Southeast Oldham meets in the old Winn-Dixie building that sat vacant in Crestwood for so long.  I think it's fantastic when an older abandoned building can be repurposed, especially for something as great as a new church.  When I was taking my ministry preparation courses with the Londen Institute for Evangelism, we visited at church in Cleveland, Momentum I think was its name, that met in a Tinseltown movie theater.  They were allowed to convert the lobby into their foyer each Sunday, then use the first theater inside the door as their sanctuary.  They obviously had an incredible screen for their videos and PowerPoint slides.

I went back home to our church at the time, one which was also from the megachurch model, and told the leadership what I found.  I begged them, as they were branching out in expansion, to give LaGrange a shot as their next location, maybe even in the Great Escape Oldham theater.  I told them that if they didn't, probably Southeast would come in any put their footprint all over Oldham County.  Well, they did (Southeast, that is), and I'm so glad they did.  They're already impacting me and my family, and I hope my experiences there help me be a better pastor at Drennon.  Our people there deserve the best.

Courageous

Wednesday night our little Bible Study group, which usually follows The Andy Griffith Bible Study, instead watched the new movie Courageous, made by the same church that gave us Fireproof, Facing the Giants and Flywheel.  Considering it was a tie for our largest-ever Bible Study group in the Beatty family's two and a half years at Drennon, I'd say the response was pretty good. 

The movie's hard-hitting for sure, and I for one am glad of it.  There are so many Christian, or so-called Christian movies, that are poorly made, painfully obvious and sugary sweet.  This movie seemed to pull out the unexpected surprises all the way up to the final few images of the story.  As one Drennonite said, "It was a good movie, but I didn't enjoy it."  I understand that sentiment exactly:  Courageous is a wonderful Christian film, but there's so much hardcore depth and truth that it's hard to just enjoy.

I actually did enjoy it, maybe even more than the first time I watched it in the theater, because I was able to step back and really reflect on what the filmmakers at Sherwood Baptist Church were trying to do.  The Christian life isn't always pretty, it isn't always nice, and it isn't always perfect.  It's certainly not always going to be easy.  I really look forward to seeing what the Sherwood folks do next.

PS--A special shout-out to local Christian actor, Tony Stallings, former Louisville Cardinal and Louisville Fire football player, who played the main villain of the movie, TJ.  I hear he is a wonderful Christian man who now works and worships in the Louisville area.  Big-time kuddos to him for getting into this movie and having the gumption to play the bad guy.

The Homeless Bishop, by Joseph Girzone

I've been a Joseph Girzone fan for over fifteen years, since my wife read one of the Joshua books in a women's Bible study group.  We were a new couple, and I moved my church membership over to her long-time church, where she was in a very strong small group.  After reading that first Joshua book after she had finished it, I checked the rest out of the Oldham County Public Library and devoured them.  Then, several years later, my wife bought me the movie version of the first book in the series, when I didn't even know one had been made.  It's probably been the movie we've shown to the most people, and in fact was the first one we showed at Drennon after arriving there in 2009.  Bottom line, I love Joseph Girzone and the books he's poured his heart and his faith into, probably as much or more than any other Christian writer.

Somehow I saw online that he had written a new book outside the Joshua series, The Homeless Bishop.  The premise followed just what the title implies, so I was hooked immediately.  When we bought our Kindle for Christmas, it was the first book I actually spent money on (Mom and Dad had given us an Amazon gift card, so it wasn't really money).  The Homeless Bishop has to be one of the top five Christian books I have ever read.  From the first page to the last, I totally "got" what Girzone was trying to say:  we need to live a Christian life down in the trenches, just like He did.  We don't need to sit high on thrones of glory and piety, but instead need to minister to "the least of these". 

This book deals a lot with the structure of and leadership of the Catholic church.  I am not a Catholic, but also feel a "we're on the same team" camaradie with that particular denomination.  I learned a lot, and also respect how Girzone, a retired Catholic priest, was willing to push the envelope and challenge some of the more thought-provoking Catholic policies, such as clergy celibacy.  I fully think this is a book any Christian can and should read.  To me, it's a potentially life-changing book, an opportunity for Christians to come closer to Him, as well as respect and love one another better.

I look forward to Joseph Girzone's next literary endeavor, and will surely read it as soon as I can get my hands on it, either hard copy or Kindle.

Secret of the Shroud, by Pamela Binnings Ewen

I've been fascinated with the Shroud of Turin for several years, but especially since becoming a clergyman three years ago.  I believe there are tons of Christian relics out there that further validate the incidents, people and places of the Bible.  I also believe the Shroud of Turin is one of them.  Many will point out the Vatican-sponsored scientific study of the Shroud back in the seventies and eighties, and say that it was proven to be a medieval hoax from Europe.  Further tests and studies, though, have shown that the snippets of cloth that were tested back then were in fact patches sewn on to the Shroud in the 1200s after it had been damaged by fire.  Tons of evidence on the Shroud show the main cloth to be of much, much older origin, of different material entirely, and including pollen from plants and flowers known only to exist in the Jerusalem area.  Plus, tests have shown that the 3D nature of the images on the Shroud could not have been replicated with Middle Ages technology, or in fact even with twenty-first century technology.  Essentially, until there's absolute proof otherwise, I believe the Shroud of Turin is exactly folks say it is.

So I wanted to read this book Secret of the Shroud because I love to read biblical archaeology stories.  I picked it up at the Cokesbury store at the Nashville Disciples of Christ General Assembly this past summer, then didn't buy it.  Afterwards, I looked and looked for it in local Louisville area bookstores, but never found it.  Finally, when my wife and I bought an Amazon Kindle Fire this Christmas, I went straight for it and bought it.  I'm glad I read the book, but was also a little disappointed at times.

I love how the author sprinkled Shroud history and lore into a modern-day story, but what disappointed me somewhat was I couldn't figure out exactly what the author was trying to accomplish with certain characters.  There are two "clergymen" who seemingly switch roles of protagonist and antagonist over the course of the fifty-year narrative, but it's hard to tell exactly, even at the end.  There's a war hero who stands up for Christianity against the corrupt clergyman, but who is disgraced on national TV and never allowed to be resolved as a character.  The corrupt clergyman, who's really the main character of the piece, kind of goes through an Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader transformation, but then as he returns to Anakin at the end, his narrative is cut off.

Basically, I really enjoyed reading the story, but perhaps am reading too much into the "fine literature" factor.  Fine literature it's not, and I suppose it's not supposed to be either.  At the same time, though, I think it would have served as a better Christian witness if the entertwining stories within the larger narrative had been tied up with stronger bows at the end.  I'd recommend the book, but don't view it as any kind of classic.

The Well, by Mark Hall & Tim Luke

I was loaned this book by one of our parishioners a couple of weeks ago, and just finished it today.  I became a fan of Mark Hall's Christian music group, Casting Crowns, after hearing their song "Slow Fade" in the movie Fireproof a couple of years ago.  I received their new album, Come to the Well, from my daughter and son-in-law on my birthday, and saw an advertisement for the book.  Lo and behold, this friend texted me about it and told me about it at church and offered to loan it to me.

The most striking aspect of this book is that, while it's very deep and moving, it's also written in a completely conversational style.  It includes personal stories from Mark Hall's life that relate to the Christian walk, with such diverse subjects as the Chinese church, Jewish rabbinical training, life in prison, small churches vs. megachurches and even the first Halloween movie.  That's another thing that impressed me--Hall wasn't holier-than-thou enough to not admit to watching a movie like Halloween, one that many Christian have surely seen but many wouldn't admit to.

The whole book relates the story of the Woman at the Well, and how we continually as humans and as Christian believers go back to wells in life that give us no real help, while the true Well is standing right beside us, or residing within us (Jesus, duh).  The message is sounds so elementary, but like so many simple things, we don't even see the forest for the trees.

I highly recommend this book to any Christian believer who'd like to reach deeper in his or her Christian walk, but also doesn't want to have to read a 600-page theological treatise.  There's certainly a place for those 600-pagers, but not so much.  Plus, anybody who loves Casting Crowns music like I do should read The Well to learn more about their leader, Mark Hall.

I'm Back

I abandoned this blog several months ago for various reasons, but now want to bring it back. My plan is to use it to comment on all things Christian, be it church items or issues, or even just my thoughts on Christian books, movies and music. I hope to update it at least once a week. I gain so much insight on Christianity from similar blogs put out there by pastors, so my prayer is that these comments can reach at least one person for Christ. God bless...

Henri Matisse and the Nuns of Vence

It's been a while, but I'm back after finding an interesting new inspiration...from my job as an art teacher, no less...

I read my students several books about great artists by an author named Laurence Anholt.  I have read to them about Vincent van Gogh (my favorite artist), Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, and others, but really raised my eyebrows by recently sharing Matisse:  The King of Color.  I didn't know a whole lot about Matisse, and didn't really hold him as one of my favorite artists, not in the least.  The story, though, verges on the spiritual, due to the circumstances of the story, which is by the way true.

It concerns Matisse's last years as he was recovering from cancer surgery.  He required a nurse much of the time, and befriended a young nurse who became a Dominican Nun in Vence, France.  When Matisse learned that the nuns of Vence had no chapel in which to worship, he helped design and finance one for the nuns.  While his abstract, modern style wasn't popular with all the nuns there, the resulting Chapelle du Rosaire has become a work of art that Matisse claimed to be his masterpiece, as well as a working house of worship.

After sharing the story, from the art point of view, to several classes, I decided to research the story more.  I found that the nuns have a website, so I emailed them (in English) if they had any resources for me.  Through the course of several emails, which eventually morphed into the French language, I ordered a small book, which arrived today by way of snailmailbox.  

I just read it, and am amazed at how every single aspect of the design of the church was planned to intentionally lead the worshippers to Jesus and what He did for us on the cross.  I had never been able to correlate much modern art with Christianity, and frankly much of it flies in the face of our faith, but this story really has moved me.  I would love to visit the little chapel, although I know I probably never will.  I have truly enjoyed learning about the story of Matisse and these simple nuns, though.