As part of the M’Cheyne Daily Bible Reading, we are reading through the book of Numbers these days. In Chapter 31, God directs Moses to carry out the Lord’s vengeance on the Midianites because of their wickedness against the Israelites.  The Midianite women had enticed the Israelites to indulge in sexual immorality and idol worship.  The Lord’s anger burnt against the Israelites first, and many leaders as well as 24,000 men were killed that day.  Then in Chapter 31 we see how severely God punishes the Midianites for causing the Israelites to sin against Him.  God commands all men, including young boys, to be destroyed as well as every woman who has ever slept with a man.  Whether it’s that of a young boy or of a grown man, life is precious. However, my mother’s heart aches a little more every time I read about young children getting killed in the Bible or in real life situations for that matter.
As I saw the devastation caused by the recent tornado in Oklahoma, once again my heart was broken over the seven children who died when their elementary school collapsed.  “How terrified those kids must have been!  I bet they cried for mommy or daddy.  Did anybody get to say a prayer for them?”  I cannot help but wonder how horrific it must have been like for those young children during the last few minutes.  And it hasn’t been that long since 20 innocent children lost their lives in a Connecticut elementary school shooting incident.   Of all the places, these children were killed while in school, the one place that’s supposed to be a safe haven for children!
Unfortunately however, natural disasters and gun violence are not the only life-threatening factors we face. You can be the safest driver in the world, but you cannot always avoid a drunken driver crossing the center line.  You may eat healthy and exercise, but that doesn’t exempt you from illnesses.  Parents can try very hard to protect their children from harm, but they cannot be with their children 24/7.  Even if they could, that still would not guarantee their child’s safety and well-being.  So what can parents do?  Is there anything they can do to ensure their child’s safety?
There are things parents can do.  Parents can pray for their child’s physical and spiritual well-being.  They can also educate their child about safe habits and what to do in case of an emergency.  That’s all good; however, it’s not enough!  There is one thing that every loving parent must do for their child’s safety.  What is it?  They must make sure that their child is saved; that he/she has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and is heaven-bound.  The child who lives with the assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ is indeed the safest child! The Children’s Summer Retreat for 3rd – 5th graders is on 6/21 – 6/23. If you have not signed up your child, please do so today.  Our own Pastor Keeyoung Kim at MD Campus was saved at a Promiseland Retreat.  Additionally, starting in June, I will be conducting a one-on-one Gospel presentation with each child.  Please pray for me and for the children so every child can be assured of their salvation through Jesus Christ and become eternally safe. 

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Proverb 22:6

From Pastor Sara’s Heart
May 26, 2013

My wife attended a week-long mediation training course last month in order for her as a judge to effectively mediate settlements among adversarial parties to reduce trials. She shared a very interesting statistic regarding church that came up incidentally in her training. During one of the sessions the instructor was discussing the notion that people have certain biases that influence their future behavior. For example, people are conditioned with certain (usually negative) attitudes towards police or lawyers based upon a prior personal experience or what they see on TV. So a good mediator should recognize that people may come in to a settlement conference with pre-conditioned attitudes.
The instructor opened up the discussion by asking the class if anyone could give an example of a circumstance where people are already pre-conditioned to act a certain way. Apparently someone raised their hand and half-jokingly answered “church.” Surprisingly the instructor said not only was it a very good example, but he went on to add surveys have shown that church was the most frequent response. In other words, church service is the number one place people are most often conditioned to TUNE OUT! When my wife told me that it made me just shake my head. Gee, I know pastors will occasionally make a self-deprecating joke that no one may be paying attention when they preach but I didn’t realize the actual harsh reality of it.
I’m not offended or upset about it. I assume most people by and large are actually listening. I may be a little frustrated but if some people are tuning out during a sermon, we as pastors need to at least acknowledge this dynamic without getting judgmental or condescending. Many seminaries now train their students on contemporary church issues such as this. As a culture we are in a post-modern age of mass communication and information. Internet, smart phones, tweeting/texting and Facebook are all common media by which we divert most of our time and energy. Our attention spans have been reduced to short sound-bite snippets of information and then we’re quickly on to the next thing. Prolific online sermons of famous pastors and Bible studies place even less emphasis on the local pastor. We are therefore conditioned to receiving information in a very condensed impersonal manner. Studies have even been conducted on the human brain confirming that the average attention span is about 10 minutes. Needless to say this does not lend itself well to a pastor standing in front of a Sunday congregation and preaching to them face-to-face for 45 minutes.
So where does this leave us? As a congregation apparently some of you are already eyeing the door (or your smart phones) by the sermon opening before the pastor even feels like he’s just getting going. You may even be reading this column while I’m preaching today’s sermon. sigh.
Your response to all of this might be that people would be willing to stop and listen and respond more if the pastor was simply better at preaching and teaching. I agree the spiritual gifting will vary from pastor to pastor and that some may have a greater ability to preach than others. But my frustration in all of this is that it seems a tad unfair for this one-way judgment to always be pointed towards the pastor. I know I have a relatively short experience in the pastoral ministry and a much longer experience as a lay congregation member.  But my (kind and gentle) pushback as a pastor is that God forbid, no amount of entertaining bells and whistles that the media world feeds us ought ever distract from a Gospel message that sustains, comforts and provides with eternal gifts of Love and Faith. Perhaps wishful thinking on my part, but the Sanctuary could be just that- a safe harbor sanctuary of peace and communion with the Lord, free from distractions of this world. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
May 26, 2013