#41 WHAT IS AN EBENEZER?

WHERE I WENT AND WHY
St. John's Baptist is one of the more liberal Baptist churches in town.  I had visited the building often when I was an early childhood consultant when they had a child care center and later when they sponsored a Head Start site.  I have admired their involvement in hunger and justice issues.

WHAT TO KNOW IF YOU WANT TO GO
Located at 300 Hawthorne Lane, St. John's is between Presbyterian Hospital and Independence Park in the Elizabeth neighborhood.  There seemed to be plenty of parking, however there was no bike parking for my segway, so I chained it to a post.  Dress was church casual to dressy.  The worship service started at 10:30 am.

REFLECTIONS ON WORSHIP

MOOD

The mood of the congregation was friendly.  Several people greeted me with their names and asked me mine.  Children were welcomed into the service with a children's sermon and there were crayons on my pew, so obviously children are encouraged to write and draw.  Upon entering I was impressed with the Easter banners which were not your typical liturgical art.

MUSIC

Music was provided by a large choir, a music director who also did a solo with the piano, and an organist.  The music director also "directed" the congregation during the hymns.  His vocal meditation, "Find Us Faithful"  was beautiful and contributed to the message of the day.  The hymns were very traditional.

MESSAGE

The theme of the messages,"God's Legacy and Ours", was from Joshua 4 (the Israelites cross the Jordan River into the Promised Land after wandering for 40 years and 2 generations, and leave their ebenezer, a stone monument, to mark the event for generations to come.)  In the opening prayer the Associate asked for help to pass on our faith stories to new generations.

In the children's message, Dr. Dennis Foust explained to the children that an ebenezer is a pile of stones stacked into a monument.  He helped then understand the monument by equating it to other objects they collect such as trophies, stones or leaves during a walk, or decorative mugs. (To save my washing machine and vaccuum, our granddaughters are allowed 1 rock per walk.  Result?:  They have become very discriminate with rocks!...lol.)  When you keep these things you are making a commitment to remember an important event.  When God brought the Israelites across the Jordan River, they left stones to help generations  remember the people's commitment to God and God's commitment to them.  He had the children create an ebenezer on the table in front of the pulpit with some river rocks.

Dr. Foust also used a visual prop in his main message, an empty chair.  He told the story of a young woman who was in a horrible auto accident that required a long hospital stay and re-learning almost everything both physically and with her speech and memory.  Her younger brother kept a vigil in a chair outside her hospital room to enforce the "no visitor" rule.  As he sat there through the night and began praying, he asked God  what else he could do for his sister; how he could be more helpful?  His answer from God was to give his sister's care over to God, for alone he had done all he could do.  This lifted a heavy burden from him and affected his life forever, as it deepened his relationship with God.  

He then recounted the story in Joshua emphasizing all of the ways God helped the Israelites in the wilderness (parting the Red Sea, manna to eat, striking a stone for water, learning to live in community with each other.)  God's legacy from the great Exodus is a two sided coin:  freedom on one side, and commitment on the other.  God was committed to the Israelites, and for their freedom, he asked for their commitment to Him.  

He then spoke to us today.  This line in the sermon really spoke to me.  He said, "Some people spend their lives in the wilderness of freedom without crossing over to commitment."  He then spoke of an Endowment the church is raising and how this will aide generations to come to fulfill the mission of the church.  He highlighted a pamphlet that had been added to the bulletin about the ministries of the church (hunger, education, peacebuilding,, homelessness, healthcare, and community building) and asked the congregation to pray and commit to one ministry inside the church, and one outside of its walls.  "Attending is sitting" and doesn't count as being involved.   He ended with asking us to remember the stacked rocks of the ebenezer: that it is stacked with our faithfulness.  But to also remember the empty chair:  a sign that we need God's help to address our problems and commitments together with Him. 

OUTREACH AND OBSERVATIONS

• This was my second sermon by Dr. Foust.  He also preached at the Community Sunrise service.  I love his Benedictions (see below) and his use of imagery.
• The collection of agencies and missions listed in their MT25 pamphlet (see below) are impressive and shows the congregation's deep involvement in the community outside their walls.  (It took me a while to figure out that MT25 reflects Matthew 25 "I was hungry and you gave me food...")
• An interesting announcement was a "Brotherhood of the Biscuit Trivia Night" being held at Birdsong Brewing.  The winners of the trivia contest will select the charity to which a portion of the $25 entry fee will go!  My perception of Baptist churches was definitely tweaked!
• I have sung "here I raise my Ebenezer" all my life and I attended Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta for this project.  As a youth I often attended Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Columbia, SC for Luther League events.  But I never considered the definition of ebenezer as a stack of stones to remember our commitment to and from God.
• I also had to look up another word from their weekly calendar.  They offer an Enneagram Class.  Enneagram is a system of spiritual psychology based on ancient Sufi typology of nine personality types or primary roles with the recognition of one''s type tantamount to a spiritual awakening".  My "almost" daughter-in-law who is a counselor offered me a book on the topic when I told her about it.
• Dr. Foust had an interesting Benediction.  When I looked it up, it is attributed  to several folks from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lao Tzu (a Chinese philosopher) to Frank Outlaw, the late president of Bi-Lo!  In Dr. Foust's version your destiny is equated to an ebenezer with God.  The original I found used "watch" instead of "pay attention to..."
• Pay attention to your thoughts, they become words;
  Pay attention to your words, they become actions;
  Pay attention to  your actions, they become habits;
  Pay attention to your habits, they become character;
  Pay attention to your character, for it becomes your ebenezer (destiny)."
• After last week's celebrations at Advent, David and I have had several discussions about what makes for great church music, especially since today is our music director's last Sunday.  This project has helped me appreciate many types of church music from traditional, classical, folk (OK, not much folk but I can wish! LOL), praise, gospel and jazz (and don't forget the Shout Bands, they are in a class by themselves!!)  I have found all of these forms can be uplifting, reflective or distracting.  Distracting when the musicians become the focal point by emphasizing performance versus worship.  Sometimes this is overt and other times I think it is the interpretation of the receiver of the music, (ummm me!) versus the musicians' intent.  But when it comes to personal worship, perception becomes reality.  This has to be a tightrope that musicians must walk (to insert another metaphor!) and one that they need to seek "reality checks" on regularly.  When a musician is very talented, it can be easy to slip into performance mode, rather than integrating music into the whole worship experience.  I have come to realize too that the worship leader needs to consider these things and take responsibility for them  (perhaps giving that reality check!).  The entire staff needs to  keep a worship perspective by being thoughtful not only with the content but also with the layout of the chancel, its layout of furniture and people, and lighting surrounding the worship participants including the musicians.  With many churches incorporating more "band" type music and less organ and piano, this can be an architectural, technical, and contextual challenge to balance the mood, music, and message of the worship experience.  I wish I had some advice on how to solve these issues.  Coordination and prayer are all I can think of.  Sometimes I recognize deliberate coordination among the worship participants.  And other times it seems the musicians are either "running the show" or lack any coordination with the message.  This definitely sets up a disjointed mood for me as the worshiper.

ADDENDUM

Most of my readers know I usually  send a rough draft to the worship leader before I publish the blog.  I got this very thoughtful response from Dr. Foust Sunday night (via his I phone)!  Just hearing all that St. John supports or sponsors makes my head swim!  I wonder if he realizes how verbose I can be!! LOL!  Thank you, Dr. Foust. 

Thank you, Deb. 

And thank you for being a good listener. 

I am glad you found our folks friendly and hospitable. 

We continue to offer a Weekday Childcare Ministry and have now hosted Bethlehem Head Start for more than 25 years. We have also hosted, for almost 30 years, the office for CROP, the largest walk in the world for local and global hunger. We also host the offices and work of Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America; Charlotte Family Housing; and NAMI - National Alliance for Mental Illness, offering support for families and caregivers. We also have six homeless families who live in our buildings at all times. These parents and children live in our facilities for a few months as they work through a supportive educational process with care teams focusing on employment, parenting, finances, etc. One more interesting facts about us is that our youth and adults have built a Habitat house every other summer for almost 30 years. As you can see, we are very involved in service as an Active Faith congregation. 

Thank you again for introducing yourself to me this morning. I will read every entry in your blog.

Shalom,

Rev. Dennis W. Foust, PhD

THIS WEEKS EXTRA

THE BULLETIN AND MT25 PAMPHLET: