I commission you all today as ambassadors of the Gospel of Welcome — Grace Turned Outward. What that means is that you are representatives of a message of good news about God. This is important because most people have an impression of God as bringing bad news to us all in the form of judgment. This is unfortunate because God has been improperly represented for quite some time. But that is precisely why you are so important. You are changing that.
Please give me a drink. John 4:7
I am thirsty. John 19:28
We worship a God who became a vulnerable human being. Superman had his kryptonite. Samson lost his hair. Jack Frost relinquished his wintry powers to become the town tailor. Jesus got thirsty. It’s a story that is played out not only in history, but in fantasy, legend and mythology — someone with supernatural powers gives up those powers to become human, and it is always done for one reason: love. That was certainly God’s reason. “But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8)
Nehemiah ended his official duties as builder of the wall around Jerusalem by calling for a dedication ceremony during which they purified the priests, the people and the wall. He then led a celebration that consisted of two choirs of singers and musicians playing cymbals, harps and lyres marching around the whole city on top of the wall — one choir going one direction, the other going the other until they met up at the other side of town — singing and rejoicing as they went. One wonders if they were able to hear each other and perhaps even sing antiphonally. At any rate there was great joy, and one can’t help but think of Tobias mocking them back when they started to build that this dilapidated wall and these silly people couldn’t build a wall that would support a fox.
by Marti Fischer
[The “Wild Goose” is the name in Celtic Christianity for the Holy Spirit, the person of the Trinity which is the indwelling Spirit, the immanence of the divine in the real world. The Wild Goose is the balance and compliment to the transcendent God-the-Father. The Holy Spirit is the fire of inspiration, the creative power of love, the source and sustainer of community, the untamable wildness of hope. When we go on a “wild goose chase,” we can feel that we’re going in circles, spiraling silly around that which is elusive and mysterious. To follow the Holy Spirit alone we might experience great loneliness. To give chase with another as different from you as you are from me, is the greatest Love that I believe we will ever know on this earth.]
Perhaps we should consider adopting the image of the Wild Goose when we recognize that in the current climate of religious, social and political cynicism, embracing the creative and open nature of the Holy Spirit is perhaps our greatest asset for rebuilding and strengthening our relationships with each other and with our enemies.
There were times, during Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, when the people got discouraged and came close to giving up. Whenever we attempt to address some weakness in our lives – be it an addiction, a sinful attitude, an unwillingness to change – opposition will come. In the case of the men and women of Israel, that opposition came in the form of the grandiose nature of the task before them and the taunts and negative propaganda of those neighboring nations who did not want to see Israel strong again.
I grew up in a home of well-intentioned people who were anxious because there was never enough: never enough money for what we wanted to do, never enough time to be spontaneous, never enough forgiveness for when we did something wrong, and never enough love so that it overshadowed everything else. My family’s default setting was on scarcity.
A member of the Catch Ministry’s Vanguard may be momentarily down, but her resilience shines through while the four other members of the Vanguard continue to lead an army of believers in support of the vision, demonstrating their unwavering strength.
Our recent focus on the story of Nehemiah is not a mere historical study, but a reflection of our current journey. Just as Nehemiah was tasked with rebuilding, we too are in a phase of significant growth, aligning our vision with the expanding needs of our community and beyond.
by Patrick Klever
I am a Civil Engineer with a lifetime of doing contract administration and construction management for the Government. During one assignment, I was told that a bona fide emergency took 14 months to get from recognition of the emergency to award of a contract. I even saw the project planning policy spelled out in official planning documents. But the headquarters’ policies laid out that the “normal” timeline indicated a more reasonable time to be 36-60 months!
I have heard it said that it takes the Mormons three days to build a Kingdom Hall on a prepared foundation. It’s something that I’d love to see. And the show Extreme Home Makeover has torn down and rebuilt marvelous new homes in just one week. What they don’t tell you is about all the planning, logistics, and permits and crews of hundreds working together with dozens of heavy lifting equipment. That alone takes months of planning and vetting and developing construction plans.
Well, Nehemiah didn’t have computers, didn’t have heavy construction equipment, and didn’t have any documentation to start with. And his efforts were derided by their unfriendly neighbors. But what he had was prayer, praise, and supplication based on faith in God. As the Israelites started returning to Jerusalem, Nehemiah apportioned the work on the wall to families that lived next to the torn down wall to be the ones to build back to the glory of God. And that was enough. Nehemiah started out as an individual man of faith and ended up shepherding over 50,000 people who joined him. The wall was rebuilt in just 52 days, including a Sabbath each week! The length of the wall was 4.5 miles with an average height of 39 feet and thickness of 8 feet. The walls contained 34 watchtowers and seven main gates open for traffic, with two minor gates reopened by archaeologists. And it was built with bricks and stone weighing tons.
Nehemiah started out as an individual man of faith and vision and ended up shepherding over 50,000 people who joined him in obedience to God.
Much, much later, Jesus performed miracles of the same magnitude (water to wine, loaves and fishes, etc.) — all because he was practicing obedience to God.
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I am a “recovering Catholic.” It’s something that you never quite get over. I have been a believer for most of my life, but mainly since college. My wife and I got married in 1982 with a priest and a Lutheran minister co-officiating. In our first 20 years, we were regular attendees at whatever mass or services were available, and in a military career, we moved often. We’ve attended Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Vineyards, Church of God, Church of Christ, and who knows what other services. We’ve been to churches where we were warmly welcomed and at least two churches where we were invisible. At one point, my goal was to have, “Here lies a man who loved God,” as my epitaph. We’ve been unchurched since 2008, but we’ve at least tried to live by faith. I looked at daily devotionals from various entities but settled on a Purpose Driven Life’s daily messages.
Sometime in 2007, I was reading a substitute teacher named John Fischer. He was working for a Purpose-Driven Life at the time. John’s little logo at the bottom of those messages was a fishing pole leaning against a bucket with a caption (as I remember) of The Catch at Fischtank. At some point, John became a central figure in the devotionals I read. He got “it!” He celebrated “it!” He could find God in everyday life, whether giving roses to his wife every Wednesday, attending spring training with the Angels baseball team, or writing about the wonder of adopting a son when most people would think about their golden years. And John made no bones about it: he was a sinner like me, and God loves us anyway.
I was hooked!
Finally, there came a time when John asked for donations to build an internet cyber church; I gladly sent in $10. Eventually, when The Catch Ministry was born in 2012, I donated monthly. As a MemberPartner, I wanted to see John and Marti make it. Such lofty goals, but Marti and John had no qualms about moving forward, bringing the Gospel of Welcome to everyone everywhere. I increased my donations and increased the frequency. John probably has the best take of anyone I know on what it means to be a Christian, and embraces everyone with Grace Turned Outward.
At a time in history where rabid politics threaten the very fabric of our lives and where meanness, pettiness, and hatred have become normalized, John and Marti continue to welcome sinners everywhere with a constant message: God loves you just the way you are. And that has softened my rigid upbringing. You are welcome in our presence just as we are welcomed in yours. Ultimately, all of these labels, divisions, and hatred are pushed back because it doesn’t matter about all of that. It only matters that God loves you! And that is why I am a MemberPartner today. It changes everything. Even me.
Click here to learn more about becoming a MemberPartner and to sign up!
On October 31 the people assembled again, and this time they fasted and dressed in burlap and sprinkled dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners as they confessed their own sins and the sins of their ancestors. They remained standing in place for three hours while the Book of the Law of the Lord their God was read aloud to them. Then for three more hours they confessed their sins and worshiped the Lord their God. Then the leaders of the Levites … called out to the people: “Stand up and praise the Lord your God, for he lives from everlasting to everlasting!” Nehemiah 9:1-5
Any move of God begins with the conviction of sin. It’s like clearing the deck before God can begin something new. So the people, well aware of how their sin had put them in their current predicament, began the day by showing up dressed in burlap with dust on their heads and empty stomachs as a sign of humiliation, repentance and a willingness to do whatever might be necessary to get right with God. Then they stood for three hours and heard the word of the Lord read in the Book of the Law of Moses — three hours of which, they would have been convicted of their sins, because hearing what God expected of them would have only pointed out how much they had missed the mark. When you live outside the word of God for a long time, you live in the justifications and rationalizations of your own mind for what you know intuitively to be wrong, but you won’t admit to it. Hearing the word cuts through all that and renders us all sinners in need of a savior.
John Fischer The Catch 