So when Jesus says, “Just as the Father has sent me, so also I am sending you,”  he is telling Christians that our purpose and mission as a church is to serve others, to pour out our lives by living them in service to others. That’s the answer to the first question.    Can I be blunt?  When Christians decide which church to attend based on “a pretty building” or “the pastor doesn’t preach longer than 20 minutes” or “my kids gets played with at this church better than that church,”  is that indicative of Jesus’ words “Just as the Father sent me, so also I am sending you”?   Or does it tell the tale of hearts that are much more concerned about serve us than service.

Here is the second question.   Since Jesus wants us to understand that “just as he was sent so also he sends us” means that we are to give ourselves in service, deny ourselves to live for him and for others,   how are we doing at that?

Please join us on Sunday as we open God’s Word to convict and convince us.

My friend said, “I think the whole country is tired out by the recession, crabby and pessimistic.”  I’m not so sure that it’s just the recession and this country, time and place.  I think that there is something inside the sinful minds of all too human people — all of us — that makes it easy to focus on the negative.  When you watch the news on TV, how much of it is negative?  85%?  More?

Then that Tuesday evening, I met with a growth group and we finished up Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians.  We read these verses:  “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally, brothers, whatever is noble, whatever is right, what is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”  

Why is it necessary for the peace of God to guard our hearts and minds?   Because our hearts and minds are so open to agitation, irritation, annoyance, conflict — anything but peace.   We fixate on the negative.  We make mountains out of mole hills.  We engage in “stinkin thinkin” and the more we think about what we think is wrong, what irritates, annoys and rubs us the wrong way, the more negative we become in a downward spiral of grumpiness and grumbling.

So Paul adds these words in the next verse after telling us that the peace of God guards our hearts and minds.   “Finally, brothers, whatever is noble, whatever is right, what is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”    Our hearts and minds need guarding.  God through the Apostle Paul tells us to not think about the negative, those things that annoy us, our complaints.  He tells us to think about things that are — and let me list the adjectives here–  noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy.

So what are you thinking about?

-I am not omniscient or all-knowing so unless someone tells me about surgeries, illnesses, deaths, births etc, I don’t have any way of knowing.  Jesus knows but that doesn’t mean that I do.

-Hospitals don’t call the church office to report a member hospitalized.  Sometimes, it is even not possible to get a room number from the hospital when I get there.  It all depends on how the hospital views the HIPPA laws.  The same holds true with SNFs (skilled nursing facilities) and rehab facilities.  If you or a family member don’t tell me where you are, I won’t be able to find you.  Also, please keep in mind that very often, information desks are not manned at all on weekends.  Kaiser hospitals are especially difficult with giving information.  For that reason, when you call to ask me to visit, please be sure to leave me a cell phone number.

-I visit people at hospitals all over the IE and Orange County so be sure to be specific.

Call your pastor when…

1.  You will be in the hospital for more than a few days and would like me to visit.  Please understand that I teach classes on Monday (King’s Kids), Tuesday (6th Grade Bible Basics and a Growth Group), Wednesday (special tutoring), Thursday (Catechism) and Saturday (Catechism) so if you are in the hospital one day and out the next, I might not be able to juggle schedules to see you before you go home.  Also, unless your condition is serious, I probably won’t be able to visit you every day that you are in the hospital.  Corona Regional is easy for me to get to and so is Kaiser Riverside but trips to OC and other facilities in the IE with drive time makes the visit something that I have to schedule.

2,  You would like me to visit you in the hospital because of special circumstances or just want me to visit.

3.  You will be having surgery (in-patient) or your condition is serious of life-threatening or you are in ICU or CCU.  Also, please communicate how serious the situation is because, obviously, the more serious, the greater the urgency of my getting there.

4.  You go home or are transferred to a different hospital or place of care.  This is important because many times I get to the hospital and find that the patient has already been discharged or has been moved.

I do home visits to…

1.  Our home-bound members once a month to visit, have a devotion and give them Holy Communion.  We are working at putting together a system that would have lay visitors stop by more often to pray with our home-bound members or just to help ward of lonleiness.

2.  Those who request me to visit.  We will set up an appointment.  Please note that my practice is not to meet with a woman (except the home-bound) alone in the home.  We may move the visit to a public place.  The Starbucks coffee will be on me.

3.  Grieving families following the death of a loved one, especially during the time after family leaves following the funeral.

I will meet with you, usually at some public place like a Starbucks to talk about whatever spiritual matters you want to address by appointment.

But it all starts with you and your letting me know what’s happening.

I’m talking about King’s Kids, our school age childcare center in Corona.  I sometimes feel like grandpa to the kids here and I think that sometimes they feel the same way.   On most days as I walk through the center, a number of kids will give me a great big smile and say, “Hi Pastor” or for some children, “Hi Mr. Pastor.”     Today was especially interesting.   As I left the building today, taking kids to school this morning,  A kindergartener named Faith said, “Hi Pastor” and gave me a big dimpled smile.  Then before I even got out of the parking lot, Kennedy, another kindergartener was being brought into the center by her dad, waved at me and called out, “Pastor, I’ve got that hole song in my head and I can’t get it out.”   Yesterday was Monday and on Mondays I sing with the kids and do a devotion and we sang a fun song called “Hole in the middle of the Ground.”   Cute.  Other kids have said that they want to the “Ostrich Song” — it’s really the “Austrian Song.”  Is that sweet or what?

Each day the children come before and after school.  I enjoy hearing them recite their Bible verse for the day together.  Jesus little lambs are learning about their Savior.   Maybe I enjoy them so much because they are kids and I’m a grandpa but for the most part, I find great joy in these children and especially that we get to teach them about Jesus and his love for them.

Now here are some little known “facts” about Pastor Novotny:

-He is the first pastor we have called named Mike although our church president is named Mike, our outreach elder is named Mike and there are least half a dozen Michaels and Mitchells (very close to Michael)He  in the church.  So if something needs to get done, we can probably get a “Mike” to do it.

-We have a little girl in King’s Kids whose last name is Novotny.  It isn’t that common a name.  Long lost niece, perhaps?

-He’s from Wisconsin.  A Lutheran pastor in the WELS who’s from Wisconsin.  Go figure?

-He’s 31 years old which according to the discussion made him a good young pastor in contrast to another older pastor on the call list who is already 33.  Sheesh.  I have shoes that are 31 years old.

Please keep Pastor Mike and Kim in your prayers as they consider our call to come to Southern California and help us share the good news of Jesus with the people of the Inland Empire.

Holy Week tires me out but it’s a good tired.   Apparently I am not as young as I used to be because Holy Week this year left me tired.  Our usual three services on Palm Sunday, one on Maundy Thursday, one on Good Friday, the Spring Fling and talking with a gazillion people in the park in Beaumont and then three Easter Sunday services left me tired.  But it was a good tired.  A contented tired.   The worship services were great.  I thought that our musicians outdid  themselves in their commitment and skills to God’s glory.   It was good to see so many people (almost 400) in church on Easter Sunday.  I know that I wasn’t the only one who worked hard so let me add a word of thanks to those who made music, taught children, showed hospitality to members & guests, prepared food, took pictures.  I deeply appreciate you.

I was very happy to see people at church that I haven’t seen in a while.  Before Good Friday and Easter, I made some phone calls and I was so happy to see that most of the people that I called came to worship Jesus on either Good Friday or Easter Sunday.  That was great.

I was a bit disappointed to not see some people at church that I haven’t seen in a while.  It’s hard to be disappointed on Easter because of the message of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the great music, the packed church, the energy, even the smell of Easter lilies.  But I was a bit disappointed.  Not everyone whom I hoped to see in church did I actually see.  It disappoints me that some who are Christians and members of Crown of Life maybe didn’t think the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection was a priority time to be in the church at which they hold membership.  Maybe I shouldn’t be disappointed but I missed them.  Church is where we do faith together and when some aren’t here, a bit of “together” is missing.

God  has some amazing people at Crown of Life.  I mentioned it above but let say it again, thanks to all who served.  Here’s what I saw:  a group of 4 or 5 people showing up starting at 5:30am to set up for outdoor Easter sunrise service;  three different bands of musicians and singers leading worship; dedicated Sunday School teachers and aides missing Easter worship themselves because they were teaching little ones about Jesus; volunteers preparing and serving two wonderful Easter breakfasts; two Easter egg hunts just to show the children that they are special organized by volunteers and with thousands of candy filled eggs for the kids; ushers and greeters working during worship; and entirely behind the scenes, a small take down/set up crew to take down church in both Beaumont and Corona and in Corona, to set up King’s Kids for Monday morning.  Just wanted all of you who served to know that I saw what you did and so did God.  And one more: in Beaumont we had a young Marine attend who is stationed at Twentynine Palms.  He is a WELS member, 21 years old and away from home and this was his first time attending.  Thanks to the two families who invited him into their homes for Easter dinner.  That is simply awesome.

A few people have asked me whether we were offering enough of a salary.  Truthfully, that is almost never the reason a call is accepted or declined.  Most pastors make Synod-code which has built into it adjustments for cost of living and experience and responsibility. Pastor’s don’t often make a decision to accept or return a call because of the money.

So here’s where we go now.  To square three.  On Sunday April 15, following the 11am service, we will extended a call for an associate pastor for the third time.  I don’t know whether or not that call will be accepted either.  But I do know this:  it’s God’s church and he will send us the pastor he wants us to have.  We need only to be patient and this is really hard, “to wait on the Lord.”

Today is one of my days that I dedicate to home-bound ministry.  I will be making calls on people who because of health or age just cannot get out of the house very easily.   These are real people with names like Norm and Phyllis who live in La Quinta and Judy in Beaumont and Shirley in Banning and all of them would be at church with our Beaumont folks if they could get out of the house.  These are real people like John in Riverside, Evelyn in Corona and Don in Corona who would be in church at one of our Corona services if they could.  But they cannot and so I go to them.   This is part of the pastoral care that their pastor provides.  I will visit them, have a devotion and where possible serve them the Lord’s Supper.  I have one lady that I just sing old hymns to because her illness no longer lets her respond.  These are real people whom Jesus loves and so does their pastor.

We have other people who are not completely home-bound but find getting out difficult.  Some of them come to church because a member of the church or a family member picks them up.  They don’t get out much beyond that except probably for doctor appointments.  They are pretty much stuck at home and that makes for loneliness.

Last week, I spoke with my mom on the phone and she told me that she and Esther Evens were going to visit “their people.”  Her church has a ministry in which church members visit other church members who are home-bound.   My mom’s church has a lot of seniors so they have about 20-25  people who are home-bound.  There are five teams of visitors and every two months they visit about 5 people.  The visits are just friendly, help-with-the-loneliness visits.  With some they just talk.  With others they play a game of cards or checkers.   The pastor still visits each month too and brings the Lord’s Supper.  These lay visits are just to show their church cares.

I think the time has come for Crown of Life to do the same.  Interested or know somebody who might be interested?  Talk with me.  My mom enjoys the visits to “her people” and has become friends with the people she visits.  This will be a blessing to the people visited and could be a blessing to you as well.  We have about 10 people who could be visited on a monthly basis.

So then, have we nothing to do to obtain righteousness? No, nothing at all! For this righteousness comes by doing nothing, hearing nothing, knowing nothing, but rather in knowing and believing this only–that Christ has gone to the right hand of the Father, not to become our judge, but to become for us our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, our salvation!

Now God sees no sin in us. For in this heavenly righteousness, sin has no place. So now we may certainly think, “Although I still sin, I don’t despair, because Christ lives–who is both my righteousness and my eternal life.” In that righteousness I have no sin, no fear, no guilty conscience, no fear of death. I am indeed a sinner in this life of mine and in my own righteousness, but I have another life, another righteousness above this life, which is in Christ, the Son of God, who knows no sin or death, but is eternal righteousness and eternal life. For if the truth of being justified by Christ alone (not by our works) is lost, then all Christian truths are lost…On this truth and only on this truth the Church is built and has its being.