Bill Teague's lpc e-pistle

Welcome to the LPC e-pistle!

Bill — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:39:38 +0000

The LPC e-pistle is designed for the friends and families of Langhorne Presbyterian Church and any others who happen by. Pastor Bill Teague shares weekly comments on the world, the life of faith and Langhorne Church. A weekly e-mail, sent by request, keeps members up to date on news and prayer concerns within the congregation. Langhorne Presbyterian Church is a warm, Christ-honoring congregation, and we'd love to have you stop by for a visit if you're ever in our neighborhood. You can get directions to LPC here.

E-pistle July 30

Bill — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:53:33 +0000

Why We Don’t Give Up

These are the final few hours of my week in Brazil and after a great lunchtime churasco (the Brazilian way a grilling meat that is unmatched anywhere else), people are resting and enjoying the mid-winter day. Puffy clouds in the sky, temperature in the 70’s and noisy parrots flying from palm tree to palm tree. I could get used to this.

I spent yesterday and today in Nova Lima, just over the hill and about 15 miles from Favela da Ventosa. It might as well be a different planet. The beauty and peace of this place is such a sharp contrast to the noise and traffic and oppressive poverty of the favela. This place is an amazing place, a gift from God to my Brazilian friend Pastor Robson and his family. That is a story for another day. As are his dreams of a Brazilian-American partnership with churches in Haiti!

The story of this week is God’s faithfulness. You may remember that the occasion of my visit here was the graduation of a young friend of ours. Emerson’s story is amazing. Once a child of the streets, literally, he is, as of Wednesday night, a college graduate. Simply and with no conditions, Emerson understands his accomplishment to be a sign of God’s faithfulness. The journey was difficult, the battle hard, the discouragement at times almost overwhelming, but the perseverance and the success all of God. We don't give up because God is faithful.

As it turned out – but not by chance in God’s economy – the week was also Vacation Bible School (EBF, Escola Biblia de Ferias) week at Igreja Presbiteriana no Jardim America (IPJA). For seven straight summers EBF had been a part of my life, Becky’s life, and the lives of many in our former church. For now the partnership between our former church and Igreja Presbiteriana lies dormant, but the work begun in that partnership continues.

EBF at IPJA has the fingerprints of a missional partnership all over it, and many of those fingerprints are Becky’s. The schedule, the movement of kids from class to class and especially the craft time were and are of Becky’s design. She was a good teacher because even though no Americans have been involved for three summers now, the program thrives. By Wednesday afternoon, the final day of the program over 350 children, ages 3 to 11, from the favela and the community jammed the every small corner of the IPJA church building.

350 children are a lot of kids no matter what space you put them in. There are seats for 100 in the sanctuary of IPJA and all the children and their 50-some leaders filled the place for opening and closing worship of the high energy variety. This year’s theme was Noah’s Ark (Arca de Noé) and the memory verse was from 1 Samuel 15:22, “to obey is better than sacrifice,” that is, obedience to God’s word is better than empty religious ritual. Noah obeyed when God told him to build the ark.

But what most encouraged me was not the numbers of kids, impressive, or the message, important, but the faithful work of our Brazilian friends, especially those 13-18 year olds who spent this week of winter vacation at the church giving a gift they had once received to a new generation of children. Many of those ajudantes, helpers, had been in our first or second grade classes, among the fourth or fifth graders eight or nine or ten years ago, as EBF began to take shape. For them the stories and crafts and songs of those long ago EBF weeks made a difference as did the faithful witness of the people of Igreja Presbiteriana. What a wonderful joy to work this week alongside Rodrigo and Monica, Elian and Leonardo, Gustavo and Kelly, and so many others.

I first came to Brazil ten years ago knowing not a word of Portuguese or the difference between pão de queijo and feijoada. After a week of no English, it’s been good to have these last two days with English-speaking friends. How many times this week did tears fill my eyes at the sight and sound of the things God has done in those ten years. And as I would send my reflections and stories on to Becky, how often her tears would join mine. Not at all tears of sadness, but tears of joy and thanksgiving for all that God has done. We don't give up because God is faithful. Thanks be to God.

How has God been at work in your life in the past ten years? What good and marvelous things has he done in, through and for you?

E-pistle July 22

Bill — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:07:25 +0000

Thou Preparest a Table Before – Musings at 35,000 Feet

This week’s edition of the E-pistle comes to you a bit early as I am on my way south – to Brazil and to the 70-degree weather of mid-winter in the Brazilian highlands. I will be spending the week with friends in Belo Horizonte, a city of about 3 million 200 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. But right now I am at 35,000 feet somewhere between Philadelphia and Miami where I will have an eight-hour layover before my eight and a half hour flight to Belo Horizonte.

I do not normally sit in the first class cabin when I travel. I just don’t. But this trip, my sixteenth to Brazil, finds me in seat 4A, up front; among those seats I normally see on my way to the back of the bus. It’s taken a lot of miles to get this seat and I’m here because it was the seat I could get. No frequent flyer seats in the back. And so here I am. The service is great. A little dish of warmed nuts – lots of cashews and almonds – a warm wash cloth after the nuts and before a really nicely done chicken Cobb salad for lunch served on a glass dish with silverware that clinks. The flight attendant smiles and calls me by name and is eager to provide whatever I want.

I probably won’t do this again for a long while, but it’s nice flying first class.

As I sit here sipping coffee from a porcelain cup, I’ve been thinking about that line from the 23^rd Psalm, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” I don’t think there are any enemies on the flight, but I have a strong sense of the table prepared before me.

In about thirty hours, my friends Emerson and Nilcéia and I (it’s Emerson’s college graduation I’m going to celebrate) will be making our way to the home Odias and Nilda, mutual friends who live just on the edge of Favela da Ventosa, the windy favela, for a Friday evening dinner. Odias and Nilda are contemporaries to Becky and me, their two daughters about the same age as our kids. Odias is a fine stone mason and Nilda is a seamstress. They are some of the best people we have ever met: kind, caring, faithful. They know Christ and share him in how they live and by what they say.

By favela standards, Odias’ and Nilda’s house is quite nice. Becky and I have stayed there many times and it is a favorite place. Behind the high walls and steel gate that keeps the violence and hopelessness of the favela in the streets is a place that is well-kept and full of love. Tomorrow night’s meal prepared by Nilda will be far better than anything they can offer in the first class cabin.

Odias and Nilda are poor by American standards. They don’t fly first class or eat at restaurants where the wait staff attends to your every need. But they are rich, indeed, by Kingdom standards. One of the great joys of the Christian life is the anticipation that is ours in Christ – that someday we will sit and eat together with all the saints at a table prepared before us, that we will receive the full blessing of those who are already blessed by having been invited to the wedding supper of the lamb. Someday we will feast with Odia and Nilda, Nilcéia and Emerson, in ways my fellow passengers in first class and I cannot imagine.

So, overnight tonight to Belo Horizonte and met at the airport by Emerson and Nilcéia. Clean up and rest and then off to casa do Odias e Nilda. Saturday will be a relaxing day with Emerson and Nilcéia and then Sunday School in the morning and worship in the evening on Sunday when I will preach at a service honoring Emerson’s graduation. The three days of EBF (VBS) with another graduation worship service and then the graduation itself. I round out the week with two days with my good friend and seminary classmate who introduced us to Brazil ten years ago.

Here is a link to a video I have put together with some images from our times in Brazil (you have nothing better to do sitting around Miami airport all afternoon).

I won’t see you Sunday, but all of you will be in my prayers.

E-pistle July 16

Bill — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:31:28 +0000

High Seas Expedition: A long way from the beer hall. Or maybe not.

I can hardly wait for Monday morning. That’s when the latest edition of an LPC Vacation Bible School begins. This year’s theme is High Seas Expedition. The program begins at 9:30, but the first leaders will arrive much earlier and by 9:00 the church building will be full of activity as team leaders and teachers are putting last minute touches on lesson plans and activities. And then there’s the sanctuary where all the kids gather daily for the opening and closing of VBS and where each class grouping comes for song and skit at some point during the morning. Thanks to the Cook family for once again transforming the chancel, this year into a high seas expedition. I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen to the room after worship on Sunday!

If you are able, and not one of the many who will be serving this year, think about dropping by the church, say at 9:30 or noon, to get a feel for all that’s happening.

There will be 100 or so kids involved in the 4 years old to fifth grade High Seas Expedition plus a great separate program for sixth-eighth grade youth. And many, if not most of the children will not be children of LPC families. Some will be friends of “our” kids and others, well, others will be there because it’s a week of cheap daycare.

So why VBS year after year? Just because we always do? And why all that effort on kids that aren’t our own?

A Christianity Today article a few years ago told the story of Vacation Bible School and its beginnings.

Vacation Bible school as we know it today got its start … on New York City's East Side. Mrs. Walker Aylette Hawes of the Epiphany Baptist Church noted a rapid increase in the number of immigrant children in the slums. In July 1898 she rented the only place available—a saloon—to run a Bible school for six weeks during the summer. Hawes structured her program around worship music, Bible stories and Scripture memorization, games, crafts, drawing, cooking, etc. The school caught on: Hawes was presiding over seven separate schools by the time she retired from her work in 1901.

Some people today might categorize Mrs. Hawes' work in the beer hall as questionable. What a place to meet and, really, immigrant kids? Did they even speak English? Some might call it a social justice ministry and advise us to get away as fast as can.

At its best Vacation Bible School has always been one of the church’s most significant mission and ministry projects. Mission always means leaving home and going wherever Christ is sending us to do the things Christ needs to be done. In this case mission is only as far as our neighbor kids. We’ll fill every room in our building, games in the grove and who knows what else. We could do it in beer hall, but 125 East Gillam Avenue works better.

Our High Seas Expedition curriculum is pretty slick. But take away the slick and you discover that we’re pretty much following Mrs. Hawes’ formula – music, Bible stores, crafts, games, snacks. And our goal is pretty much the same as hers: to introduce children who otherwise might not have the opportunity to hear the story the Bible tells – it’s the old, old story of Jesus and his love. We just won’t be telling it in a beer hall.

By the way, I will be skipping out on the last two days of VBS – I have a plane to catch. Going to Brazil to help out with EBF, Escola Bíblica de Férias, VBS. More on that next week.

For a preview of Sunday's Sermon, please click here.

E-pistle July 9

Bill — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:53:02 +0000

LeBron James and Christian Discipleship

For those living on another planet: LeBron James is a basketball player. He is 25 years old and for the past six years, since his graduation from high school in Akron, Ohio, he has played for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Between his contract with the Cavaliers and endorsements for the likes of Nike, he has earned hundreds of millions of dollars.

LeBron has been a remarkable player for the Cavaliers. His all-star and MVP awards are too many to count. His team has become a contender and a bright spot in an otherwise dismal city. But the Cavaliers have not won an NBA title even with LeBron James in the line-up.

Last night LeBron James announced that he was leaving Cleveland and the Cavaliers to play for the Miami Heat. The decision comes as part of the NBA’s free-agency system. James could have stayed in Cleveland and made $30 million more than he would make anywhere else (that’s how the system works). But Cleveland is not New York or Miami and the bidding was intense. The phrase “billion-dollar player” was bandied about as endorsements and appearance fees in cities more glamorous than Cleveland were added in.

So LeBron James decided to leave the dreary city that adored him, not far from where he grew up, for the Sun Coast.

Across the sports world – and beyond – LeBron James is being portrayed as the ultimate traitor. “He’s a Villain” declares one headline. “Loyalty in sports is dead,” wrote a columnist. The owner of the Cavaliers has posted a letter on the team website calling James’ decision “cowardly betrayal.” “LeBron James plunged a crass dagger into the hearts of northeast Ohioans,” writes a blogger on a soccer website. And, yes, you will get a number of results if you google LeBron James and Judas Iscariot.

You get the point.

In his press conference last night, James claimed his decision was not about money. I believe him. He could make a zillion dollars playing anywhere. He said it was about the chance to be on a team that might win the league title. “That’s the only reason we play this game, to win championships,” he said.

And so you leave the city that adored you, the fans who loved you, the place that finally began to believe it might have a future because of you, rusty northeast Ohio that nurtured you and believed in you, because the only reason to play the game is to win championships?

They sometimes call them the hard sayings of Jesus. Among them:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:26
Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All people will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. – Matthew 10:21-22
He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Luke 9:59-60
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. – John 15:18

And then there is the Apostle Paul:

One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 3:13b-14

Sounds like “That’s the only reason we play this game, to win championships” to me.

You get the point.

Okay, LeBron James and his decision to abandon Cleveland may not be the best analogy to Christian discipleship, but there’s something there. How important is the championship to us?