Letter from Wendell Berry

I received a letter from Wendell Berry the other day. Now, this is not as dramatic as it sounds. It's not because I am somebody, it's rather that he is a very gracious man who has unfailingly answered any letters I have sent him over the past 20 years.

Anyway, I have been wondering for some time why Kentucky's Appalachian counties are so much poorer than the Appalachian counties in the surrounding states. Additionally, Kentucky's Appalachian counties are some of the least church-attending parts of America, whereas the Appalachian counties of the neighboring states are not as low in their church attendance.

Wendell was one of the people I sought out on this.

I won't go in to his answer-- at least at this point-- because he said something else in regard to our church plant in Menifee County and the dream that is in my heart of a new church in Wolfe County:

“I would like to see the Christian faith, with or without the churches, amount to something in the modern world.” Man, that hit me hard. He meant it in regard to Jesus' love for the poor and the hungry and the sick.

So whether or not I ever find out why Eastern Kentucky is so consistently poor, one of the effects of the Kingdom must be that the poor hear not just Good News, but find Good News.

Visitation

Yesterday turned out to be a day given over to visitation. I love days like that, but they can wear you out. It started with one of our Life Transformation Groups, where four of us are serious about spiritual growth. So while it is not technically “visitation,” it is sitting donw in an intimate environment and turning everything over to the Lord.

There were some hospital visits, about which more later. I stopped at a few houses of folks shut in for one reason or another. As I was going up one street, I was walking by the house of a church family. Their three year-old girl, Isabel, was standing at the storm door. She opened it and had the sweetest smile. She said, “Pastor Aaron, it's too cold outside. I came over and got a sweet smile and a hug. I talked to her dad for a moment-- they were on their way for her mom to take her citizenship test. Cool stuff.

But I was brought to tears by her sweetness. I can't really say what it was. Perhaps to be called out to by a child you have watched grow, a member of our Princess Mafia with Nadia. Something came to mind about giving a cool drink of water... but this was so much more. I thought, as if for the first time, “Pastor Aaron.” Pastor. Aaron. There was a time those two things could not have gone together, but thanks be to God that He wonderfully saved me.

Visiting some folks in the hospital, I was reminded how much a section of Psalms has such power for the suffering. Ricki Ashkettle and I seemed to land in Psalm reading back in Louisville when her baby daughter had some serious heart problems. I found myself there again yesterday. If you are in a hospital visiting, or with a scik person, or suffering yourself, then here is a great set of verses to pray, to let flow over you:

Psalm 61:1-5, Psalm 62:1-2, Psalm 63: 1-8.

Fast forward to tonight. John went to the hospital with me to visit Mary Philips and Charlie Derrickson. John loves Charlie-- who has a farm with a pond where John caught the monster catfish that he had Jessie fry for him at 9:30 at night... Charlie's granddaughter Morgan is one of the boys' favorite people. She saw John out walking one evening and she told him Charlie would be having surgery. She said she regretted telling him because she said John got a stricken look on his face. So when he found out it was a knee surgery, he was better. And John was really happy to see Charlie.

I suppose if there were a child who should hate hospitals, it's John. But he goes with me to visit every so often. We read Psalm 91, a Psalm that is traditionally an evening prayer Psalm. As we shared some other Scriptures and spiritual encouragement, there was a part of me wondering if I was talking to John as much as I was to the people we were visiting, reminding him of the goodness of God, of His power over life-- “Even in death the righteous have a refuge” (Proverbs 14:32).

While we were in evening bible study, the nursery worker answered the church phone and brought in a message that a dear saint of the church, Mary Phillips had had a heart attack and bad fall. After Bible study, I headed out. I walked over because I knew Jessie had some work to do before we'd leave. Carol Pierce graciously drove me over.


What I found when I visited Mary is worth telling. First, she was not in the ER where I was expecting her to be. When I came into her room, she was looking pretty good. She was happy to see me-- it's funny. I have been wanting to see her for a while, but have not had the chance.

Why I wanted to visit her was that I had heard that she has a ministry of passing out tracts at Cracker Barrel and a few of the staff have found salvation in Christ because of the ministry. Wow! Can you believe it! I keep hearing you shouldn't do evangelism like that! It doesn' work! Tracts are... what? Cheesy? Inelegant? Simplistic? Go ahead, keep it coming! We will just keep handing out tracts and witnessing to the love of God in Jesus Christ.

So as I was sitting with her, asking her what was wrong, she said she had a heart attack that caused her to fall and break her hip. But the break is probably not so serious as to need surgery and they are just going to monitor her heart. We had a wonderful time praising the Lord.

We read sections of Psalms-- 23, 24, 25, 27, 34, 62, 63 and Matthew 11:28-30. We spent some time in prayer.

Some things to reflect on. Mary started handing out tracts because she wondered what she could still do for the Lord then she selects the tract from a variety she carries with her. How simple this would be! Just carry some tracts, Billy Graham's Peace With God is a good one. Give it to a server, a cashier, a co-worker...

Mary mentioned someone who is a “prayer warrior” who wins many to Christ, and I was reminded of how often that is true. I am thinking of Ada Sweeney, such a force in the old Epworth church, her constant praying and prayer meetings, and how many people were “wonderfully saved” in her living room.

So... pray that people would be saved. Pray for them. Pray with them. And have a tract ready that they can take home and think about.

You Have to Check This Out

Copy the link below and plug it into your browser.  This is awesome.

http://www.releasetheape.com/party-bus-planting-praying-reaching-unreached-campuses/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffercfca1&utm_medium=twitter

The Gideons

I have had an interesting series of conversations with Jeremy Brown, a banker and Gideon in our town. I should say that they are more like one conversation that we seem to keep having; we keep picking up the same thread.

The conversation is about Scripture, of course. The Gideons exist to get the Word of God into people's hands, lives, minds, and spirits. With Jeremy's permission, I share a couple of things he shared with me about some times he has passed out New Testaments.

Once, a fellow in a car saw him on a corner passing out Bibles, and he stopped the car in the middle of the road and hollered, “are those Bibles?” When Jeremy indicated they were, the man hollered that he wanted one. So Jeremey hastened to the car and ended up handing out 4, one to each person in the car.

I tell that as the inspirational piece. The rest of what I share is heart-breaking. I suspect that many of you do not understand or believe what I am about to share MEANS. The ignorance of Americans as to what Christianity is/believes is staggering. Church, you cannot stay in your shell anymore. Well, to be honest, you can. But you will find it emptier and emptier, and one day, one of you will be that last one there.

It will be easier to do nothing and hope you die before you see the terrible decline. But surely there are some of you who want to fight.

One young college student asked Jeremy and his co-worker if they knew anything about Heaven. They said they did. The student said her thrid-grade Sunday School teacher told her one thing, but a professor another. Jeremy said I will have this in common with your professor, “Read the book. The answer is in here.”

“Is the answer really in here?” she asked.

“I guarantee it is.”

Another time, a student asked, “What are you handing out?”

“New Testaments,” Jeremy said.

“Is that the book Jesus is in?”

At a recent event, Jeremy noticed a man looking at the New Testaments available. But he wasn't really making a move towards him. Jeremy engaged him and the man asked what they were giving away. “New Testaments.”

“What's that?”

“It's a part of the Bible.”

“Oh, I have heard of that.”

Friends, I was once as ignorant of the Bible and Christianity as these were. I was worse off, because a college education had convinced me that I knew more about it the fallacies, contradictions, and madness of the Bible than the Christians who had been brainwashed to believe it. I had such good and elegant reasons for my unbelief! A Gideon's Bible, Fall Semester, 1994 changed everything. I had refused or thrown them away before that.

Support the Gideons. Look into becoming one.

But more than anything: get to know some non-Christians and tell them what you believe and why. Invite them to believe it, too