Transformation Revivial In Progress

This week I had the unusual pleasure of speaking to thereof my clergy friends from around the US. We had opportunity to share about what God is doing in our ministries and in our lives. My buddy, who has been pastoring for about 7 years, shared with me a story that has captured my attention for the entire week.

Kevin shared that his church has been exploding this year and it was initiated by an unplanned and unscripted event that has changed the way they approach church. They have three services each Sunday and a man battling with drug addiction, which he had met earlier but the congregation did not know, burst into the early service on the first Sunday of the year proclaiming his need and desire for his life to change by the power of God. Kevin explained that instead of three services there was one long service with the move of the Spirit taking them from prayer to singing to messages and again to prayer. Kevin went on to explain that other people in the congregation have come forward to yield their lives to the transforming power of God. People who were previously more concerned with the proper way to do church, the order of worship and making sure that they had on the socially accepted church attire. In what appears from the outside to be an affluent neighborhood where no one has any problems now every week somebody comes down the aisles to have prayer seeking to have their life changed.

Three observations:

People are hurting even if they do not talk about it
People are wearing masks about their lives to protect themselves from being transparent and from being hurt
It only takes one person to take off their mask and talk about their pain who is willing to yield themselves to the power of God to change other people’s attitude about their situations.

Looking forward to the transformation revival

Be Adventurous !
Rev. William T Chaney Jr
Pastor
West Baltimore UMC
5130 Greenwich
Baltimore, MD 21229
(410) 945-8397
http://wtcreflects.blogspot.com
http://nugleadership.blogspot.com/

West Baltimore UMC is an Acts 2 church: Transforming the 40 West Corridor by Being and Making Disciples for Christ


Moving in the spiritual realm should be as much a part of a believer's routine as prayer, worship and reading Scripture. Yet all too often, Christians practice an intellectual faith, which lacks any supernatural punch. Healing, deliverance and signs and wonders are an inheritance for all followers of Jesus Christ. The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind teaches you how to remove the blinders of religious limitation to redeem the lost and transform communities. You too can tap into an abundance of miracle—working authority and unleash the power of God's glory.

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Rick Warren on HIV/AIDS

• Rick Warren, pastor at Saddleback Church, wrote an article on titled, "What your church can do to help eradicate HIV/AIDS." It is an excellent article that highlights the HIV/Aids epidemic and ways that congregations can actually do something rather than talking. One of his most powerful sentences says, "The love of Christ compels us to reach out and care for people who are suffer alone. Considerer this: 40 million women, children, and men worldwide have HIV/AIDS with more than 1 million in the United States! That means, statistically, someone in your church has HIV/AIDS."
  Pastor Warren lays out some practicle steps
  
  Care for and comfort the sick
• Handle testing and counseling
• Unleash a volunteer labor force
• Remove the stigma
• Champion healthy lifestyles
• Help with nutrition and medications

The burden of educating people, especially our African American women between 18 and 24 seems to be an overwhelming task. Informing and encouraging people especially men about testing seems to produce little fruit. Loving and supporting those who have HIV/AIDS and their families appears to have little effect on the social stigmas previously associated with HIV/AIDS. One of my challenges is that the church was a catalyst in developing some of the negative social stigmas. They began by calling it a gay white man's disease. It then was the plague to wipe out the unrighteous. The church, especially the evangelical church, recently has been apathetic to HIV/AIDS because is now viewed as a black disease and not really their problem.

ABC News recently did an excellent job with a Primetime special 'Out of Control: AIDS in Black America'. One of the points that Terry Moran discusses is the lack of the black church to use their considerable social and political clout bring the disease to the forefront and start their communities of faith to discuss the ways to mobilize rather than criticize and alienate those with HIV/AIDS. I am thankful for Rick Warren's article and his personal investment to engage the Christian Community I am hoping that there are some African American Pastors with the courage and vision to also speak out and live out the call of Jesus to "love our neighbors as ourselves." Those with HIV/AIDS are our neighbors. It is time that the church starts to act like it.

Praying for a Cure

Be Adventurous !

Rev. William T Chaney Jr

Pastor West Baltimore UMC

5130 Greenwich Baltimore, MD 21229

(410) 945-8397

http://wtcreflects.blogspot.com

http://nugleadership.blogspot.com/

West Baltimore UMC: Transforming the 40 West Corridor by Being and Making Disciples for Christ

Prophetically Proclaiming a Reformation

Jesus was sent to earth with a mission to reconstruct the religious world. The Law was over bearing and no one was keeping the law. The religious institutions of the day had created oppressive rules and regulations upon The Law which keep people enslaved to perpetual rituals that were not worshipping or honoring God.

The Jews were on the watch for their Messiah to also deliver them from the oppression of the Romans just as God had delivered them from Pharaoh. After Jesus had been on earth for 30 years he began his public ministry and instead of the religious leaders welcoming him they began to criticize him. The conflict was the first recorded reformation of religion and church fight.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were invested in keeping the rituals Jesus was invested in relationships. The religious leaders were more concerned with form and fashion and Jesus was more consumed with substance. The Ruling Jewish Council knew about the hurting, the sick and the lame but Jesus reached out and touched the hurting, the sick and the lame. The entire Jewish nation was comfortable with the purity of their religion but Jesus challenged them that until the worshipped with a pure heart their religion was unacceptable to God. The Pharisees, Sadducees, religious leaders and Ruling Council thought that Jesus was attempting to break The Law and Jesus was really coming to fulfill the law.

The keepers of the law attempted to trick Jesus in this text

Matthew 22:34-40
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Jesus not only understood the hidden intent but he produced a brilliant answer that summarized the 10 Commandments in two sentences.

Lesson – The church is in need of reformation today. Churches all over the United States and Canada are dying, in the process of dying or are dead and do not even know it. They are Lutheran churches, Baptist Churches, Methodist Churches, AME Churches, Disciple of Christ Churches and even non denominational churches. Most of these churches are rooted in grounded in solid theology and 1950s, 60’s and 70’s paradigms of being and doing church. The fear of moving into the 21st Century is the same fear that holds them back from being engaged in fruitful ministry.
Church people still rebel against reform because they are comfortable with where they are. Many do not see the big picture of the churches demise. Until the church is released from religion we are going to be in bondage.

People inside the church and outside of the church are hurting because of broken relationships with God and broken relationships with other people. We can not have healthy relationships with other people as long as our relationship with God is anemic, weak and malnourished. God’s design to pass on perfect love (agape love) is through those who confess with their mouth and believe in their heart that Jesus Christ is Lord. These are the people who have been saved from apathy of a broken church and saved to the joy of a reformed church that worships God in Spirit and in Truth.

Prophetically Proclaiming a Reformation

Rev. William T Chaney Jr
Senior Servant Leader
West Baltimore UMC
5130 Greenwich
Baltimore, MD 21229
(410) 945-8397
http://wtcreflects.blogspot.com/
West Baltimore UMC: Transforming the 40 West Corridor by Being and Making Disciples for Christ

New Book

Copyright Interpretation Jul 2006
House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity by Roger W. Gehring Hendrickson, Peabody, 2004. 408 pp. $29.95 (cloth). ISBN 1-56563-812-3.

FROM THE RISE OF Christianity to about 150 C.E., Christians exclusively met in private homes in dwelling rooms that were also used for other domestic purposes. The household model thus strongly influenced the social life, the organizational and leadership structures, and the ecclesiological concepts of early Christians, as well as their missionary outreach. Roger Gehring's book, which is both exegetical-theologically and sociohistorically oriented, gives an excellent and erudite survey of the past and current scholarship on early Christian house churches.

As most previous studies of the topic have begun with the Pauline mission, Gehring's new contribution lies primarily in his focus upon the time prior to and immediately after Easter, on household structures as a framework for the ministry and mission of Jesus and his disciples as well as of the primitive church of Jerusalem. He thereby relies heavily on the alleged historical accuracy of the historian Luke, as his Tubingen doctoral mentors do. Gehring then proceeds to the missionary outreach of the "Hellenists" and of the church at Antioch before he discusses the Pauline and post-Pauline churches as well as 2 and 3 John.

The appendix contains five floor plans; three three-dimensional reconstructions; indices of modern authors, subjects, and ancient sources; and an extensive bibliography. This fine book ends in a hermeneutical application, illuminating the importance of home groups and house churches for the church today.

[Author Affiliation]
PETER LAMPE
UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG
HEIDELBERG, GERMANY

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Living in Hope

Great is our LORD, and mighty in power; HIS understanding is infinite.
Psalm 147:5


Watching the news I understand that the difficulties of life that I experience are insignificant to the challenges some other people have. A mother lost her child in a drive by shooting in DC. People in North Carolina and Virginia are experiencing the fury of hurricane Ernesto. Victims of hurricane Katrina are still trying to rebuild their lives and the list goes on and on. Even though I see other people facing the challenge I do not find hope in their sorrow.

I find hope in knowing that the Lord our God is great and mighty in power. I can face my situations with God because I know that there is know barrier that I will face that He can not handle. I can handle the temporary discomfort knowing that He will be there with me through the challenges. Knowing that I will make it through with God comforts me in a way that no human council can comfort me. I do not have to rejoice in the sorrow, challenges or suffering of others to experience how wonderful God is. He not only knows what we are going through but he also understands.

I often have to explain different emotions to my daughter as she is navigating the inquisitive stage of life. It is often a challenge to explain emotions like exhilarating, exacerbated and exuberated. For a four year to attempt to comprehend the sadness of losing a relative, understand the adventure of mountain climbing and share the anticipation of the first weekend of college football can be a daunting task. What ever the range of your emotions to a given event in life God understands. To understand me and be with me through the turbulence of life is an awesome gift from God. This is why in the middle of the madness I can still have hope.

Living in Hope

Rev. William T Chaney Jr
Senior Servant Leader
West Baltimore UMC
5130 Greenwich
Baltimore, MD 21229
(410) 945-8397
http://wtcreflects.blogspot.com/
West Baltimore UMC: Transforming the 40 West Corridor by Being and Making Disciples for Christ