Brown's Daily Word 9-7-11

Good morning,
The weeks I spent in Orissa, India (in July- August) were officially during Monsoon season. It rained unceasingly often. It appears that the monsoon has followed me to New York. It has been raining cats and dogs, as they say in England. The forecast is for more rain for the next several days. I am praying that Lord would send some rain to Texas.
Praise the Lord for Wednesday. We will gather for our Mid-week fellowship and study. We will be studying the book and the video presentation, titled, "Why? Making Sense of God's Will". This study is written by Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist Minister, who loves the Lord and who loves His people.
Craig Barnes, a Presbyterian minister, wrote a different book about the suffering and the disappointments of life called, “When God Interrupts.” In his book, Craig writes of his own personal painful experiences. Just before he turned 17, his parents divorced. His mother left his father, and then his father left Craig and his brother as well. In fact, Craig has no idea where his father is. He suggests that perhaps his father’s abandonment was out of personal anguish of a sense of failure. In any case, Craig and his brother found themselves basically on their own.
On their first Christmas after the divorce, Craig and his brother wanted to visit their mother, but they didn’t have bus fair. They decided to hitchhike, thinking it would be easy to get rides along the way. It wasn’t. It was cold, dark, and snowing.
Craig and his brother found themselves doing something that came from their childhood. Their father, who had also been a minister, had insisted that his sons memorize Bible verses when they were young. It was like a drill, where there father would call out a reference and they were expected to respond with the appropriate verses. The brothers found themselves in a back and forth exchange that cold Christmas Eve, taking turns calling out corresponding references and verses such as:
Proverbs 3:5, Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 29:11, and Isaiah 43:1-4
Craig comments on that experience: “That night for the first time in my life, I heard those verses, maybe because I was ready to hear them. I was confused, frightened and grieving over the loss of everything that had once held my world together. I needed a savior.”
It is written in Romans 8: “It is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit...also groan within ourselves as we wait for God...to set our whole being free. For it was by hope that we were saved;...”
The Good News is now that we are saved, when life gets hard, when we suffer and things seem hopeless, when we are called to make some decisions and stand up for what we believe in.. we don’t lose hope. It is written that our hope is real.
The Lord has given us the Holy Spirit. He has given us His presence and power, and It is written that even when we don’t know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf.
Louise Perotta writes of the incredible faith of the poor in the Caribbean and the spirit of those who work with them. One of those individuals is Sister Regina. She doesn’t look like Mother Teresa, but much of what she does in the same spirit. She has been so inspired and touched by the lives of those she works to help, that their lives have influenced her prayer life with God. She says, “I’ll probably never live at that level of misery, but to FEEL with them. I guess that’s what I keep praying for.”
One woman she has been working with is Sylvia. Sylvia is the mother of two severely retarded sons. Sylvia struggles to provide full time care for her physically grown children while trying to work to make a small income to support them.
Sister Regina tells us that her prayer life has been changed by her experience with Sylvia’s family. “I begged the Lord to awaken in me a sharpened sense so that I could ‘taste and see’ a little bit of Sylvia’s suffering. I don’t want this to be just and intellectualized prayer, but something that’s in my blood - prayer with guts in it.”
It made a difference in Sister Regina’s life. Suffering and identifying with the poor in the way Jesus did has become a big focus in Sister Regina’s prayer life and her prayers have spilled over into action, where she is finding ways to meet the needs of those she serves. They have given her a pet name of FFF, because they say she is fanning flickering flames. It's true, she notes, that many have become hopeless and frustrated. They are ready to give up. Their flame is almost out. The Holy Spirit has led Sister Regina in prayers of new hope for these people, for a life for them and herself of living close to Christ, to be able to offer light in them midst of a dark future, to fan flames that are flickering. The Holy Spirit has led Sister Regina in her prayers.
Our Sovereign God, who is mighty and merciful, has had a plan from the beginning of time. When things go wrong, God’s plan isn’t thwarted and it isn’t changed. In times of suffering, when we need a savior as Craig Barnes said, God plan provides for us, cares for us, looks over us, comforts us, and provides us with hope. That’s what God’s plan of salvation does for us. We find ourselves in situations that suddenly become extremely life threatening to our survival. Our problems become bigger than we can handle. In these times we especially need to remember, as Paul reminds us, that God’s plan of salvation is in place, watching over us when life is at its most precarious. “We know,” says Paul, “that in ALL things, God works for good with those who love God.”
William Barclay says, “The key note of the Christian life is hope. The Christian waits for life, not for death.”
“There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.”
In Christ,
Brown

http://youtu.be/e8HgAVenbUU
Please pray for our upcoming ministry events:


We will be back to our Wednesday schedule, including Bible study, fellowship, and prayer, starting tomorrow, 6/7. We will meet with a meal at 6 PM, with the Bible study beginning at 6:30 PM. We will begin a 4 week study on the theme, "Why? Making Sense of God's Will", by Adam Hamilton. Topics include, "Why Do the Innocent Suffer?", Why Do My Prayers Go Unanswered?", "Why Can't I See God's Will for My Life?", and "Why God's Love Prevails". Following the completion of this study we will be using Rick Warren's study, "Forty Days of Love". This will lead us to the beginning of the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. More information will follow in the church newsletter.

Please mark your calendar for our prayer conference, which will begin on Friday, October 14 and continue through Sunday morning, October 16.
The Key Note Speaker: Kelly Johnson from Memphis TN.
Prayer Team will include: Sunita and Andy, Rob and Jenn and Meredith from Washington DC.

The tentative schedule follows:
Friday, October 14 at 6 PM - opening session at Union Center UMC
Saturday, October 15, 9 AM - noon - concert of prayer at UCUMC
Prayer teams will be available to pray for people for salvation, restoration, healing, deliverance...
Saturday, 5:30 PM - banquet at First UMC, 53 McKinley Ave., Endicott
6:30 PM worship service, including an open invitation to pray at the altar following the worship service. I invite you to be a part of the prayer team during that time.
Sunday morning worship at 8:30 and 11 AM. at UCUMC Kelly Johnson will be preaching. There will be a time for prayer / a concert of prayer

Our first Saturday evening service will be held on Saturday, September 17 at 6:30 PM (Coffee Fellowship at 6 PM) at First United Methodist Church, 53 McKinley Avenue in Endicott. Rev. Earle Cowden will be preaching, and Laureen Naik will be leading the worship. One of our ministry teams, led by Lynn Rosenbarker, will be preparing and serving a meal at noon on 9/17, as part of our outreach ministry.
Our youth will be attending the Word of Life Superbowl at the arena and other sites on November 4 & 5.
Our annual Thanksgiving Banquet will be held on Saturday, November 19.
The Russian Men's Ensemble will be in concert on December 3.
We are planning for a trip to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Extravaganza on December 6, leaving here at 6 AM, spending the day in NYC, and attending the show at 5 PM. There are optional sites to visit, including the Ground Zero 9/11 Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. The trip costs $90 per person, including the bus ticket and a ticket to the show. Anyone who wants to reserve a spot on the bus should make their check payable to Union Center United Methodist Church, memo "Radio City Christmas Extravaganza".
We will have a combined worship service on September 11 at 10:15 AM. This will be a Communion Service. Then, on September 18, we will go back onto the regular schedule with services at both 8:30 and 11 AM and Sunday School at 9:50 AM. Wesley will resume meeting at 9:30 AM.
Here at Union Center- Wesley- Endicott, we focus on " World as our Parish"., We remind ourselves that we serve under a captain who has never lost a battle. Jesus Christ the Head of the Church is Faithful . We are invited to embrace 7 holy habits of Christian faithfulness. We are called to FOCUS on our prayer life, our relationship with Christ, reading the Bible, faithful worship attendance, financial gifts to Christ and His Church,, serving Jesus with our hands, and sharing the good news of His Great Redemption,with others. May Christ be praised.