Peakland UMC

From the album I recorded with my son and his friends in Nashville a few years back, here is one of my favorites - Better Is One Day

Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions and church news. During this season of Lent, we at Peakland are reading this book, Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Over the past month, we at Peakland have talked about and practiced the spiritual disciplines of prayer and meditation, Fasting and Study, Simplicity and Solitude and this week, we consider the disciplines of submission and service.

One of my takeaways from this weeks readings is Richard Foster’s guidance of what submission free us to do and to be and what really constitutes service.

Foster writes that submission frees us from the terrible burden of always needing to get our own ways. I like that very much. Submission frees us from the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way. Submission frees us to focus on the important things in life.

Many things in life which we think are important and want to go our way may not be that important after all. Comparing ourselves to others, holding on to the resentments and grudges of the past, trying hard to fit in. None of that is that important in the long run. We submit, we turn away from our ego and pride and vanity.

Submission frees us to focus on what is essential and what Christ would have us do and be about: following the ways of Jesus Christ, ensuring the well-being of our families, promoting justice and peace in our world, providing relief from poverty and oppression in our communities, and stewardship of the environment.

When we submit our need to always get our own way, we are free to love one another as Christ loves us. We are free to love our enemies and seek reconciliation with those who hurt us.

When it comes to service, Foster differentiates between self-righteous service and true service.

Self-righteous service is done mostly for our own benefit. We who have lots give and serve those who have little. Self-righteous service seeks external rewards. Did you see what we did for them? Wasn’t that so generous of us? Self-righteous service is done only when it’s convenient for us and we feel like it

True service, Foster writes, is built on the small everyday kindnesses that we can extend to other that don’t seek the limelight or validation. True service includes courtesy to others and refraining from speaking evil of others. True service includes time spent listening to others and providing empathy to others. True service focuses more on the needs of others rather than our needs.

Foster readily writes that service and submission can be misused and abused.

If I don’t pick and choose who I serve and if I don’t look for results in my service then I can be taken advantage of. If I submit to everyone and anything, then I will absolutely be taken advantage of!

To do submission and service in the best ways, we remember that submission and service and all our disciplines are spiritual disciplines, to be done with our hearts open to where Christ is leading us. We must keep our souls open to how Christ would have us serve and submit. We practice submission and service as a community too. We as a church pray and seek God’s guidance on how to submit with love for others without compromising our own sacred worth. We as a church pray and seek God’s guidance on where we as church are needed to provide care and compassion in our communities. We help each other figure out how to practice these disciplines.

I hope you’ll join us here in Peakland as we practice our spiritual disciplines and as we are reaching out, serving all and extending God’s table. Contact me if you’d like to know more about the our great church community.

Next week, we look at the disciplines of confession and worship.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

I first heard this song in the early 1970’s. Carol King wrote and recorded it, then sometime later James Taylor recorded the song as well. The lyrics have, from the very beginning, had more than just “you’ve got a friend”, in that it took on as much of a connection to God as to a close friend here.

A little while back my friend Lynn Nash and I recorded our own version of this iconic song, and once again that relationship - the closeness to God spread over me. So I decided I would go outside of the box today with Music Monday and share this song that is so full of love, compassion, support and encouragement, with all of you. The lyrics are readily available online, but sometimes just listening to an instrumental lets your mind form its own lyrics.

You’ve Got A Friend.

During the season of Lent we have been using Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline for sermons and Lenten Studies. I was honored to be invited to deliver the message on Sunday. My sermon topics were Simplicity and Solitude. However, if you were present in worship or joined the online service you noticed that I spent very little time of the subject of Simplicity.

Richard Foster describes the Christian Discipline of Simplicity as “an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle.” Both are essential, in that we deceive ourselves if we believe we can possess the inward reality without its having a profound effect on how we live.

“The central point for the Discipline of simplicity is to seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness of his kingdom first and everything necessary will come in proper order. The inward reality of simplicity involves a life of joyful unconcern for possessions. It is an inward spirit of trust. The sheer fact that a person is living without things is no guarantee that he or she is living in simplicity.”

Foster goes on to describe three inner attitudes which free us from anxiety concerning our possessions or lack of them.

Receive what we have as a gift from God. We are dependent on God for the simplest elements of life: air, water, sun. What we have is not the results of our labor, but the gracious care of God. All can be gone in the flash of an eye.

Simplicity means to trust God for the blessings of life. This is not just about what we possess but our relationships, our employment and the simple pleasures of everyday life.

If someone is in need, we help them by sharing what we have.

As Methodist we have a powerful example from John Wesley, who lived a very modest life. He did not fill his life with possessions, rather he made it his goal to do everything that he could to assist the poor in society.

His motto: Earn all you can, Save all you can and Give all you can!

When you visit his home in London, it is obvious that he lived a very modest lifestyle. Even the Methodist meeting houses were simple structures without the finery we have come accustomed to in our churches today.

Foster closes this chapter with a few suggestions for outward expressions of this discipline.

Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status. Examples: Homes, automobiles, clothes, etc.

Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you or the oppression of others. Simplicity is freedom, not slavery.

Develop a habit of giving things away. De-accumulate! Masses of things not needed, complicate our lives.

Learn to enjoy things without owning them. (Beaches, Parks Libraries etc.)

Develop a deeper appreciation for creation.

Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the kingdom of God.

I've had a lot of requests to repeat this song I featured last Fall. Here's my friend Mike Petrokonis, and 10,000 Reasons.

Andrew shares with us a realistic approach to Fasting.

Yesterday in our Horizons service we did something different. In fact we did several things differently, but one thing I have not down before. More on that in a minute.

I picture myself as a life long learner - I think I may have mentioned that before. One aspect of playing the I have wanted to learn is the Black Gospel style. Every once in a while I’ll get interested in it, but lately that interest has blossomed a little and with the help of my son Matt, I learned a few progressions I wanted to use on a Sunday Morning. And that day was yesterday.

So I enlisted the congregation to be the percussion section! That means they clapped on 2 and 4 while I played and we all sang.

So here’s a recording I made this morning of that arrangement, and I added hand claps on 2 and 4. One of my favorite songs - I Love To Sing Your Praise, Lord.

Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions and church news. During this season at Lent, we at Peakland are reading this book, Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Written nearly 45 years ago, this is a book that I first read 25 years ago and have returned to it again and again over the years. I’m so pleased we at Peakland will be reading and discussing this book together. This past Sunday, I spoke about Prayer and Meditation, and this week Andrew, Pastor Dave and I are leading in person small group discussions on Prayer and meditation.

I’m eager to share this book and my insights with you over the next few Wednesday in Lent.

Simply put, Meditation is listening to God and prayer is speaking to God. In all the hurry and crowded calendars and noise in our lives, we Christians may neglect listening and speaking to God. As a busy parent and busy pastor, that happens to me a lot. It’s a gift from God to re-read these words so that I can change my behaviors and be more intentional in my listening and speaking to God.

Praying and meditating, speaking and listening to God, is meant to allow God into our lives so that God can make some good changes in our lives. We don’t pray and meditate for the sake of praying and meditating, we speak and listen to God so that we can draw closer to God and closer to each other and so that words and our deeds better reflect the values and the practices that Christ intends for us.

A couple of weeks ago, there was shooting on the campus of Michigan State University. After that shooting and after other acts of violence and tragedy, many politicians and public figures issues statements such as, “My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” My thoughts and prayers are with the community as they regroup and rebuild.”

After the shooting on the campus, A Michigan state representative issued a statement,

To heck with your thoughts and prayers. To heck with your thoughts and prayers. Only he didn’t write “To heck with” He used much stronger language.

He was angry that the only response these folks seemed to have to the violence and death in our schools and in our grocery stores and in houses of worship were thoughts and prayers. I understand that anger. And if thoughts and prayers were the only response we have to violence and tragedy, then I would also say to heck with thoughts and prayers.

Our speaking and listening to God, our thoughts and prayers and meditations are the first response we have to tragedy and violence in our world. They are not the only response, and they are certainly not the last response. We speak and we listen to God so that God can move us and change us. So that God can fill us with compassion and anger, so that we can truly love one another, help one another and become people who work towards peace and justice.

Take the opportunity this week and in the days to come to pray and to speak to God.

I’m still going to pray after tragedies. As a church, we pray for an end to violence. And then we listen as God directs us to become a people of peace and justice in big ways and small.

Next week, we look at the disciplines of fasting and study.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions, discussing our church book studies or like I’m doing today, sharing a bit of church news about Sunday worship.

Since Covid began, Peakland had been pre-recording a Sunday worship service, specifically for online viewing. We recorded on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and posted it Sunday morning. From the beginning Linwood Campbell, Peakland’s worship leader and go to tech guru, was instrumental in crafting our pre-recorded video services.

It took a lot of time during the week for Linwood to do this.

Now that we are coming out of Covid and doing more and more in-person ministry, Linwood and I along with our church worship leaders decided it was time to try a new thing with Sunday worship. Instead of pre-recording, we are now livestreaming our Sunday worship.

For folks worshipping online, you’ll be able to participate along with those here in person in the sanctuary. As of now, we can only livestream our 11:00 sanctuary worship. We have new cameras set up in the sanctuary, so you’ll be able to see and hear the worship leaders and me when I’m standing on the floor.

When I’’m at the pulpit.

When I’m behind the table.

At the lectern.

In the choir.

We’ll post the lyrics of the hymns and the word of the prayers and scriptures on your screen, so you can follow along with the congregation.

For those of you who are going to be worshipping in the room and don’t really want to be on camera, fear not. We will keep the camera focused up here.

This Sunday, February 5, is a communion Sunday here at Peakland. We extend God’s table beyond this room and into the homes of our online folks. This Sunday if you are joining us online for worship, have a cup of grape juice and some bread for your household and follow along.

We at Peakland believe Christ is calling us to be reaching out, serving all, and extending God’s table. It takes many hands to make this livestream worship work. Linwood has recruited a team of church volunteers already, but if you’d like to help out make online worship possible, send him an email at this address. We are still working some of the technical issues out, so if you notice some sound issues or faulty streaming, let me know. I sure am grateful to God for Linwood and for all the folks who make our new livestream worship possible.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

I had an opportunity to record an album with my son and some of his friends in Nashville a few years ago. Here is the title cut, "Sing to The King."