Shelby County Today

June 6, 2022 - Grace and peace from our brother and our teacher, Jesus. Amen. We were in double digits at Paxton Methodist—something to celebrate at our little church. Sunday was the Day of Pentecost, a high holy day in both the Christian and Jewish faiths. Pentecost occurs around the beginning of summer and schools letting out. I know it is not officially summer, but it is already feeling that way. I am watering my raised garden beds every day. We were promised some rain last week, but that never materialized.

I took the cans of fruit and a couple of checks to Community Christian Services last Wednesday. I got to visit with old friends as we were unloading the back seat. CCS has plans for expansion, and it looks like construction has begun. What a vital service they provide for the area! This month Paxton Methodist is collecting paper towels and toilet paper for CCS. In downtown Joaquin next to the Community Center are the Little Library and the Blessing Box. Both have been very busy, including garden produce in the Blessing Box annex. The need for nonperishable food items is greater than ever, so if you want to get a book maybe you could also add some cans to the Blessing Box.

Our Sunday School literature started a new quarter and used the same scripture that we had for the Day of Pentecost worship. It isn’t very often that our Sunday School lesson and my sermon share the same Bible verses, but today they did. Our new author emphasized the importance of the Spirit in preparing us to minister to our little part of the planet. The power of God’s Spirit enables us to live in the hope that things will be right with the world. I wouldn’t presume to tell God what to do, but I wish the Spirit would spur us into action to help bring God’s Kingdom to the Earth.

Our hymns today were “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and “Standing on the Promises,” both of which contain such calls to action. The title of my sermon was “New Day, New Way,” a reference to Pentecost, as the official beginning of the Christian Church. Next to Christmas and Easter, it is the most celebrated holy day on the Christian calendar. On the Jewish calendar, it is Shavuot, or Festival of Weeks. Originally it was an agricultural celebration, when people would bring their first crops to God. Later this holy day celebrated God giving the Torah to the people. Our bulletin quote, also about Pentecost, came from Pastor William Sloane Coffin: “Christians have no business thinking that the good life consists mainly in not doing bad things...Pentecost makes it clear that nothing is so fatal to Christianity as indifference.”

Being the first Sunday of the month, we celebrated Holy Communion. In my sermon I quoted John Shay who said we are to be a community that hollers out, “Gather the folks, tell the stories, break the bread!” Today at Paxton Methodist we broke the bread, but we didn’t do much hollering. We’re not much like the old-timey “Shoutin’ Methodists.”

Whoever you are, in whatever faith you were born, whatever creed you profess; if you come to this house to find God you are welcome here. Paxton United Methodist Church is an inviting church that takes to heart the idea of “Open Doors, Open Hearts, and Open Minds.” Worship begins at 10:00. Our email address is paxtonumc@yahoo.com. If you would like the weekly email newsletter about Paxton Methodist, you can send your email address to the Paxton email address, and I will add you to the list. God’s Speed.

June 2, 2022 - The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 8:10 quotes a passage from the 31st chapter of Jeremiah where he writes, “I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts”. God is telling us there will come a time when his laws, his precepts, his commandments will not be written on tablets of stone, but it will be a law written in the heart.

God is telling us that the spirit of His laws, the spirit of living His kind of life will take hold of our hearts. It won’t be a legalistic kind of obedience but an obedience of love because we love God. There is a place in Matthew 15:8 where Jesus quotes Isaiah when he says, “this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” We surely don’t want that to be said of us.

Is there an application in this for those of us living in this present day and age? Why do we obey God’s commandments? Why do we live God’s kind of life? Do we live God’s kind of life out of a fear of going to hell? Do we live God’s kind of life because that is “what we are supposed to do”? Or, are we living God’s kind of life out of our love for God. Are we living God’s kind of life because of the love God showed for us in sending Jesus and we want to return that love.?

Where is God’s law written for us, for you and me today? Is God’s law written on our heart so that we live for God because we love Him? It should be.

It’s something to think about. . . tbp

Join Us for Worship this coming Lord’s Day at Center Church of Christ or online at www.centerchurchofchrist.com

May 31, 2022 - The Joaquin Community Cemetery Homecoming will be held on Saturday, June 11 beginning at 10:30 a.m. at First Baptist Church in Joaquin. We will have a pot luck lunch to follow in Fellowship Hall. Our speaker, Cynthia Webster, will give us a talk and slide show about the early merchants of Joaquin, including the theater. Everyone is encouraged to attend.

May 31, 2022 - Sunday was the last Sunday of the Easter Season. What many see as the birth of the Christian Church, Pentecost, comes next Sunday. Shortly we enter into Ordinary Time, which most people would vote for—just regular, everyday time. But our world was shattered once again by gun violence. This week it happened at an elementary school right here in our beloved Texas. Twenty-one people, nineteen of the them children, were gunned down in their classrooms by an 18-year-old armed with a semi-automatic weapon. There are no thoughts or prayers that can help grieving parents, siblings, and grandparents at this time. We recoil at the idea that our children are not safe when we send them to school. The week before was a mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. And before that, a church shooting. What will we do about this madness? Perhaps our leaders will heed the overwhelming call from Americans, put aside their differences, and work together to help heal our country.

Monday is Memorial Day, when our nation unites to remember the men and women who have defended our country, paying with their lives. It is also a good time to remember our active service people and our veterans—all of whom have made sacrifices. In addition, Memorial Day is seen as the unofficial beginning of summer. Students and teachers across Shelby County are out of school until August. We at Paxton hope the young folks, teachers, and school personnel have a good summer—a time to rest and recharge.

As this was the last Sunday of May, we gathered up the offerings of canned fruit for Community Christian Services. In June, we will donate paper towels and toilet paper.
The original collection schedule did not purposely choose for this reason, but it is nice that we usually have one month of heavy items (like cans of fruit) followed by a month of lighter ones (like next month’s paper products). Makes it easier on the “toters.”

We completed another quarter of study and got new Sunday School literature for Summer 2022. Our final lesson was titled “Acts of Generosity.” The reading came from 2 Corinthians: 8-9. Paul is reminding the church in Corinth of its promise of a large donation to the church fathers back in Jerusalem. Paul has good advice on how one should give. Fannie had a really good lesson prepared, and we agreed about the need of generous hearts...but also the difficulty in dealing with people who are not straightforward about their need. There are no easy answers.

We added to our church’s prayers the Family of Frances Fallin as well as the victims of the gun violence in Uvalde. I read a prayer for Memorial Day from the Methodist Book of Worship. I accidentally turned too many pages and was reading a prayer for Independence Day, discovered my mistake, and turned back a page. The Paxton folks will hear the other prayer in July. We sang “America” and “America the Beautiful” to keep in the spirit of Memorial Day. Our bulletin had two quotes this week. From Vince Lombardi: “We will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.” He might have been referring to football, but this idea certainly carries over into life in general. The other, in a list of Memorial Day quotes, was from former president Clinton: “There is nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured with what is right in America.” Also inspiring.

My sermon mentioned that Christians of an earlier time would have come to church this week to remember the Ascension of Jesus. This Sunday, the Gospel lesson again came from John, detailing Jesus’ final prayer for his friends and other followers of his teachings. My sermons for the two previous weeks were also based on John telling of Jesus’ final talk with his disciples. Jesus said that it was compassion—love—that would mark them as his followers. He also told them that the Holy Spirit—The Friend or The Companion—would be with them in their life’s journey. Today we finished with Jesus final prayer.

Whoever you are, in whatever faith you were born, whatever creed you profess; if you come to this house to find God you are welcome here. Paxton United Methodist Church is an inviting church that takes to heart the idea of “Open Doors, Open Hearts, and Open Minds.” Worship begins at 10:00. Our email address is paxtonumc@yahoo.com. If you would like the weekly email newsletter about Paxton Methodist, you can send your email address to the Paxton email address, and I will add you to the list. God’s Speed.