Stan, The Holy Spirit, and UCC

This post will be some random thoughts on a few different things.  I also want to give you some updates and encourage you to pray.  

Stan Welch

It was a joy to hear Stan preach on Sunday.  I’ve listened to him teach God’s word before, but this was the first time he delivered God’s word to us at CLF.  When I ask men to fill the pulpit for me, I tell them that they can preach on their favorite text, or they can preach a text in the series we’re currently doing.  Knowing that we’re in Genesis, a challenging series, I assumed Stan would take a favorite text.  But he didn’t.  He chose Genesis 4 and did an excellent job with that text.  

I was challenged to not be like Cain and “phone it in.”  I was challenged not simply to do my obligations before God but to be devoted in faith to God.  I was encouraged to look to Jesus.  Stan’s sermon reminded me of the dangers of my sin and the wonders of my Savior.  

But that wasn’t all that we experienced with Stan.  As you know, we’re installing Stan as our newest elder.  We prayed over him on Sunday to start serving us in that office.  It was amazing to hear and see the joy in our church as we did this.  The affirmations from our church body about Stan and his wife, Melanie, have encouraged us as elders.  God is at work among us, and Stan and Mel are another evidence of that.  

CLF, thank you for being so welcoming to leaders and a joy to serve.  

The Holy Spirit

I mentioned to you last Sunday that I would be out of town last week.  I went to Louisville, Kentucky, to the Sovereign Grace Pastors’ College to take a class on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Pneumatology).  This is a part of the ongoing growth that I feel is important as I get older.  At 52 and in the ministry for over 30 years, I don’t want to coast home nor “phone it in,” as Stan cautioned.  I want to be pushing hard until the Lord calls me home.  

This class was important to me because I have always thought the Holy Spirit is the least talked about person of the Trinity, and yet I’ve believed that if He’s not active, nothing of eternal value gets done.  Further, I wanted to deepen my dependence on the Holy Spirit and understand more fully what the Bible teaches about His work.  

And I was not disappointed.  Jeff Purswell, the Pastors’ College Dean, is one of my favorite teachers and did a stellar job of turning our gaze to the work of the Spirit.  One of the highlights for me was Jeff’s teaching on the work of the Spirit throughout the Old Testament.  This was very encouraging to my soul.   

Here are a couple of quotes that stirred my heart:

• “. . . the Holy Spirit [is] the Spirit of Christ. . . . The Spirit’s actions are directed to Christ to the glory of the Father. This is what it means to talk about the Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus . . . . the Spirit is other-directed, Christ-directed. The “of” makes all the difference. . . . The Spirit never departs from the Son. The Spirit works tirelessly in the economy of grace to expand the community of those baptized into the Son, the living Lord Jesus. . . . In keeping the Spirit tethered to the Son, as indeed the biblical testimony encourages, the Spirit does not float free of the Son and his Father. The indissoluble bond that exists between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, between the Father who sends him and the Son who breathes him, is thereby honored.”  Christopher Holmes
• “The Holy Spirit is institutionalized the moment that God’s people, on whatever grounds allow themselves to assume that their own current practice is a guaranteed vehicle of his presence and power. Protestants have often censured Roman Catholics for making this assumption about [its] sacramental ministrations . . . . But when Protestants continue unconcerned in church situations unmarked by changed lives, joy in worship, and zeal in witness, they show themselves to be falling into the same trap and making an identical mistake. When churches treat any of their characteristics—their orthodoxy, their separated stance, their loyalty to traditional expressions of faith, their up-to-dateness in worship, their charismatic ethos and routines, their interest in “signs and wonders,” . . . as guaranteeing that the Spirit will be with them to bless them, irrespective of whether or not experience bears them out, they are institutionalizing the Spirit.  They are making the same mistake if they look to their own good organization and administration, alluring programs, stockpiled counseling skills, and ecclesiastical experience in general as constituting sufficient proof that God is with them, and if they compile statistics, issue reports, and hire pastors on that basis. The truth is that any church can institutionalize the Spirit by becoming triumphalist and complacent. . . . Ecclesiastical formalism sets in, and the Spirit is institutionalized with disastrous consequences. For the Holy Spirit’s true work is to lead sinners to Christ and through Christ to God; to make individual believers Christ-like in love, humility, righteousness, and patience; and to animate the church corporately to offer praise to God, service, and help to each other, and compassionate outreach to the world.  Institutionalizing the Spirit in the way described makes for apathy and indifference to spiritual quality so long as the ecclesiastical machine rolls on. This obstructs church growth in Paul’s sense of the phrase—that is, corporate advance toward the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:15-16; Col 2:19)—and thus quenches the Spirit by not taking him seriously.  Complacency is the cause, and Laodicean lukewarmness the consequence..”  JI Packer God the Evangelist
  • This particular quote caused me to stop and pray for myself and our church.  

UCC Move

I’ve had a few of you ask me some questions about the potential move to UCC, so let me answer some questions here:

• Will this move be cost-prohibitive and push our building project farther down the road than it already is?
  • The answer to this is ‘no.’  We initially thought the answer to this would be ‘yes.’  But when we approached UCC about meeting there one time per month, they asked if we would like to meet there every Sunday.  We responded that it depended on the cost.  They came back with a very reasonable fee structure that fits within our budget and will not cause us to stop growing in ministry or moving forward in our mission.  
• What will we do about children’s ministry?
  • That’s a great question.  We’re not entirely sure yet.  We’re considering renting an adjacent building with extra classrooms.  Depending on cost and availability, that’s probably what we’ll do.  This could mean that we offer the same amount of classes or fewer classes, but we’re working on that this coming week.   
• How many does it seat, and won’t it feel huge?
  • It seats a little over 1000. And yes, it will feel big.  One thing about Jacoby Auditorium is that it’s a theater.  The rows are very long, so we must be intentional to help our church “feel” small.  I’m trusting the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us with this.  We’ll need to ensure we use before and after church to engage with one another.  And we’ll need to ensure that we’re moved toward the front and into the middle.  
• What are our other options?
  • Our other options are going to 3 services at our building and doing a once-a-month large gathering at UCC.  We’re simply growing beyond our capacity to have two services. This is why the UCC option is attractive to us.  3 Sunday services are daunting, and my pastoral friends have encouraged me to make that a last resort.  
• So, are we doing this, and is this forever?
  • We certainly hope not.  Our goal is still to build a new building, and we will keep that in front of our congregation, especially since we’ll be meeting offsite more often than not.  So, please keep giving to the building fund!
  • We are concerned that UCC may not be a good “culture” option for us.  By that, I mean we’re passionate about keeping the CLF culture of care, community, and fellowship intact.  So, UCC is giving us trial dates to “test run” the facility.  February 26th is our first run.  So, please come to our 10:00 a.m. service and invite your friends!  And then give us feedback.  The other trial dates are March 5th, and we’re hoping for March 19th.  After those dates, we’ll need to decide on the rest of the Sundays for this year.  
• Is there anything that is needed?
  • Well, I’m glad you asked.  There will be needs for set-up and tear-down for the children’s ministry and our worship team. In addition, we will need a clean-up crew to pack out trash.  If you can help us, please go to https://clfroseburg.breezechms.com/form/bdd6dc228734 and fill out the form.  We’d love to have your help.  

One last thing:  CLF was started in 2003.  I have been the only lead pastor at CLF, and I can tell you that nowhere in my wildest dreams did I think we would have church at UCC’s Jacoby Auditorium.  I never thought we’d need it.  And yet, here we are.  God has been so kind to us, CLF.  Let’s maintain a God-centered humility and keep our desperate dependence on the Holy Spirit’s work.  

From the Cheap Seats

• Welp…I’m not sure how to process the allegations against Manchester City.  One hundred nineteen reported Financial Fair Play violations.  If some of these are true, it means they cheated.  Pep Guardiola (my favorite manager) will be done.  I might have to find another team…so I’m hoping it’s not true.  
• It’s been a while, but the hope I feel for the 2023 Texas Rangers season is something I haven’t felt since 2016 when they were good.  They have pitching (if they can all stay healthy).  And they’ve always had offense.  Pitchers and catchers report next Monday.  Let’s go!
• Go Chiefs! 

To watch or listen to the sermon described in this post, please click here.

Have a great week!

In Christ, 

Dave York