In her sermon entitled "Stir Into Flame" Carolyn Marshall cites Paul's letter to Timothy on how we need to give thanks for those who have made an impact on our lives and who have joined in the journey of faith. She quotes the opening part where Paul writes: "I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to stir the flame into the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.  For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:3-7).
Carolyn's sermon was a thoughtful exposition on how to stir the flame of faith which God has given us, especially with respect to the ways we are to serve and pray together. Indeed, as Carolyn stated, God calls all of us to offer ourselves in mission to those who are struggling, especially in a place like the Lucille Raines Residence. We can make a difference when we allow the Spirit to use us. This is what makes the faith alive and vital.
All the gifts we can share add up in wonderful ways.
How may we in our lives each day join in God's work around us, where we work and live? How can we, as many of our women shared during the services, make a difference by joining in fellowship and service with fellow followers of Jesus? It is an invitation to grow in faith and commitment.
Carolyn Marshall is the Executive Director of the Lucille Raines Residence in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Paul offers us a model of prayer for living into God’s future in Colossians. In this prayer, he writes to a small group of Christians in what is now modern day Turkey; it is a new congregation started a close friend of Paul’s named Epaphras. In fact, Paul has not been to Colossae.

Yet, Paul’s main point in writing this letter is to communicate to this little house church the victory Christ achieved over the powers of darkness (1:13). His opening words focus on being able to give thanks to God for this victory (1:12). Indeed, we can find a wonderful summation of the whole letter with these words a couple chapters later when Paul writes, “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

Note that point: whatever you do…give thanks. Whatever mission project you are involved in, whatever small group you are participating in, whatever work you are doing, whatever gift you are going to give, whatever job you are planning to do…give thanks.

Remember that Paul is writing these words as a prisoner, frustrated, I am sure, yet thanking God for who the Colossians are and what they are doing. Indeed, Paul prays that the Colossians will continue to be filled with the “knowledge of God’s will”; and that they will “continue to lead lives worthy of the Lord”; that they will continue to “bear fruit in every good work” (1:9-10). Why? Because it is all about giving thanks.

But let us note how Paul does not long for the “good old days.” He is not fixated on the past. He does not ruminate on what happened last week or last month or last year. Instead, he looks to the future, praying that the Colossians will be equipped to face the challenges that lie ahead.

How may we learn from Paul about praying and giving thanks under difficult circumstances? How might we get to the point of how to thank God in whatever we do, remembering that we are always living into God’s future? 

​Pastor Andy Kinsey

In the Bible, we have different stories about healing. We see people walking miles, carrying their friends or their relatives to Jesus to get them cured. They are concerned about their loved-one’s situation. They want their friends to recover. They want them to be good. In the Bible, the healthy people try to help the unhealthy people, the vulnerable, to get well.
In the Bible, we read stories about people who saw how bad their conditions were and how others were excluded from the community. They were very troubled, and many broke the laws of the community. They broke the laws for the sake of their body, so that they would be made well.
I recently read a story about Philadelphe Delord’s experience as a missionary in Oceania. It is a story about what he saw in the leprosarium of Valbonne in France. One day, while passing through the village, the missionary saw a little hut away from the town center. Out of curiosity, he went to look in the hut. When he approached, he discovered a young girl who was about fifteen years old whose hands and feet were terribly deformed by the disease called leprosy; even her face was already affected, and she was horrible to see. The missionary asked a simple question to the young girl: “But who takes care of you?” The young girl answered, “No One. I have nobody.”
In Jesus’ day, there was a man who needed help to go into the Pool of Siloam, but no one was there to help him, until Jesus came and asked him if he needed someone to aid him. Indeed, Jesus asked, if he wanted to be made well, not wanting to assume he did.
It is a difficult question to answer: do we want to be made well? Do we want to receive health from the One who can heal us? Often it means responding by picking up our own mat and listening to what Jesus has to say. But more to the point: it means realizing that we all stand in the need of someone who can help us and to listen to what he has to say.

Joseph Mulongo

In the parable of the weeds among the wheat, Jesus speaks on multiple levels to a series of issues: e.g., to the issue of good and evil, to the virtues of patience and humility, to the matter of the final judgement and redemption.

Jesus tells this parable right after he tells the parable of the Sower, which means there is a definite agricultural bent to it. However, if you read the parable of the Sower about how the Sower scatters seed in a free and haphazard way on the ground, and if you then read this parable about not pulling the weeds out of the wheat, you might get the impression that Jesus knows very little to nothing about farming! Yet, when we read this parable, we must understand that the weeds or tares Jesus is talking about are what agricultural historians call “darnel,” which looks just like wheat, especially in its early growth; the problem is that the darnel kills the wheat.

That is important to keep in mind: It is important because, as Jesus shares, when we go to tear out the weeds or tares, we are also capable of tearing out the wheat. It, therefore, present us with a problem, if not two fundamental questions – one is theological, the other ethical.

The theological question is, where did evil come from? Here, we learn from Jesus that “An enemy did this,” that is, an enemy sowed weeds among the wheat; the evil in this world does not come from God and Jesus wants to be clear about that. In fact, the Bible in general is not much interested in the origins of evil. Rather, it is concerned with the redemption of evil. That’s the first question.

The second question, or ethical question, is more developed: the ethical question is, should we pull out the weeds? As we just shared, this is where it gets tricky, and where we might wander about Jesus’ gardening knowledge when he says, “No, don’t pull them out.” Jesus makes this comment for two reasons: 1) there is no way to pull out the weeds without pulling out the wheat too; and 2), there is going to be a harvest, and when the harvest comes, God will sort it all out, the wheat from the weeds, the good from the bad.

Therefore, in this parable, Jesus counsels his disciples to let the wheat and the weeds grow together on the one hand and to wait for God to judge at the harvest on the other. In other words, have patience with the weeds and leave the judgement to God.

How may we confront the weeds in our lives and still allow God to judge and work out God’s ways among us and at the end of the age? How may we love God and our neighbor, even though we consider the neighbor as part of God’s weed patch? 

​Pastor Andy Kinsey