Central Presbyterian Blog
Mission Update
April 5th, 2012 by Rozolen Stanford
In February mission partners Dennis Jonsrud and Mike Kendig went to Guatemala to visit with our church family in Aceituno. Pastor Lopez of the Principe de Paz church sends a warm “hola” and is looking forward to our visit in June. He has a lot of projects for us to do but our main focus will be to deliver a bottle washing system and to continue with our Health and Hygiene training. He has about 460 students and 150 adults for us to train during our visit this summer. There are many ways that you can get involved with our mission work. You may travel with us toGuatemalaand help us with our mission work there. You may help us to organize our mission activities here at home. You can donate resources that can be used for our work inGuatemala. Most important of all, please keep us in your prayers as we carry out our mission inGuatemala. For more information contact Steven Erhart or Dennis Jonsrud. Thanks for getting involved.
Got Guat?
March 21st, 2012 by Rozolen Stanford
Mission Guatemala Part III is already in full force and plans are already in effect to travel to our church family in Aceituno, Guatemala on June 23rd. The cost of the trip is $800 per person plus airfare. Please don’t let the cost stop you from joining us and learning more about this meaningful mission endeavor. Great things are happening, and please don’t let finances keep you from exploring how God can use you. Contact Steven Erhart for more information, including possible scholarship opportunities.
And don’t forget…
Lenten Challenge
Central Church plans to go back to Guatemala this summer to continue the work on our water system there. This June we plan to purchase and install a bottle washing system. We would like your help funding this mission. The mission group would like to propose a Lenten Challenge for you. We ask that you put aside $0.50 to $1 each day through the 40 days of Lent as a donation toward the mission trip this year. A sign up sheet will be set up in the fellowship area for your commitment. Thank you for helping with our mission!
Mission Update
March 12th, 2012 by Rozolen Stanford
Mission Update
In February 2012, mission partners Dennis Jonsrud and Mike Kendig went to Guatemala to visit with our church family in Aceituno. Pastor Lopez of the Principe de Paz church sends a warm “hola” and is looking forward to our visit in June. He has a lot of projects for us to do but our main focus will be to deliver a bottle washing system and to continue with our Health and Hygiene training. He has about 460 students and 150 adults for us to train during our visit this summer. There are many ways that you can get involved with our mission work. You may travel with us to Guatemalaand help us with our mission work there. You may help us to organize our mission activities here at home. You can donate resources that can be used for our work in Guatemala. Most important of all, please keep us in your prayers as we carry out our mission in Guatemala. For more information, contact Steven Erhart or Dennis Jonsrud. Thanks for getting involved!
Lenten Challenge for Guatemala Mission Trip
March 12th, 2012 by Rozolen Stanford
Lenten Challenge for Guatemala Mission Trip CentralChurch plans to go back toGuatemala this summer to continue working on our water system there. This June, we will purchase and install a bottle washing system. We would like your help with funding for this mission. The mission group is proposing a Lenten Challenge for you. We ask that you put aside 50¢ to $1 a day for Lent as a donation toward the mission trip. A sign up sheet is in the fellowship area for your commitment. Thank you for helping with our mission.
Central’s 18th Habitat House
March 5th, 2012 by Rozolen Stanford
Central’s 18th Habitat House will be built in Denver this summer of 2012! Call the church office, 303-839-5500, for Joyce Coville’s contact information for all the details.
Evotional – December 11 – The importance of patience and waiting
December 12th, 2011 by Rozolen Stanford
During this season of the year, we take time at the beginning of worship to light the Advent candles and to say…
We light this candle as a sign of the coming light of Christ. Advent means coming. We are preparing ourselves for the days
When the nations shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.
Let us walk in the light of the Lord.
It’s a mantra within the Church that we are a waiting people: waiting for Christmas when Christ is born, waiting for God’s rule to come on earth to right the many ways this world is not as it should be. Steeped in the language of waiting, I was struck by a similar sentiment in a totally different context as I was re-reading Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to A Young Poet. In advising his poetic pen pal not to rush the creative process, he again affirms the importance of patience and waiting.
In this there is no measuring with time. A year doesn’t matter; ten years are nothing. To be an artist means not to compute or count; it means to ripen as the tree, which does not force its sap, but stands unshaken in the storms of spring with no fear that summer might not follow. It will come regardless. But it comes only to those who live as though eternity stretches before them, carefree, silent, and endless. I learn it daily, learn it with many pains, for which I am grateful: Patience is all!
May we all spend a little more time this season practicing this under-utilized virtue!
Shalom,
Jacqueline
Evotional – October 31 – Leaving the Garden of Eden
October 31st, 2011 by Rozolen Stanford
Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote an interesting little book about 15 years ago called, How Good Do We Have to Be?: A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness. In it, he uses the Garden of Eden story as a metaphor for the normal human life cycle. Childhood, in this metaphor, is the Garden of Eden. It’s like a big house that kids have the run of. There’s everything you could ever want in there – just don’t touch what’s in the liquor cabinet.
It’s the curiosity of youth, according to Kushner, not original sin, that makes the liquor cabinet so fascinating. And, inevitably, when our parents aren’t watching, youthful curiosity drives us to sample the wares. The moment our parents clue in to what we’ve done, we stand emotionally naked before them…and then the excuses fly.
“My brother told me it was medicine!”
“Lindsey Lohan does it!”
“Well, if you had just LOCKED the liquor cabinet…!”
It’s normal for kids to avoid responsibility for their actions. Consequences – usually experienced as punishment – are no fun. Which runs entirely contrary to an important characteristic of children – they are hard-wired for fun. Interruptions in fun are a serious threat to everlasting bliss in the Garden of Eden.
In I Corinthians 13:11, Paul writes, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Leaving the Garden of Eden is about making peace with realities like working for a living and raising kids – hallmarks of adult life which, frankly, are often no picnic.
Ultimately, being a grown-up means getting kicked out of the garden. And surviving outside the garden means making the best use we can of real forbidden fruit – our understanding of good and evil.
No excuses.
Submitted by Erica MacCreaigh
Evotional – October 16 – Be Still and Know the Lord is God
October 17th, 2011 by Rozolen Stanford
At the women’s retreat this weekend, we spent time engaging in spiritual practices that enable us to “be still and know the Lord is God.” Among them, we were reminded of the monastic Christian practice of praying the hours, when the entire community would cease work at pre-set times and engage in communal prayer. In modern-day life, this practice is more commonly witnessed in the Islamic faith in which Muslims pause five times per day and join together in prayer. As a form of engaging this practice, we set an alarm, and every time the alarm sounded we set aside whatever we were doing and joined in prayer. While it’s appealing in theory to engage in routine prayer, it’s challenging in reality. The basic human impulse to do just one more thing takes over, and it’s easy to convince yourself that you’ll get around to prayer as soon as you finish your current task. Or, you’ll skip this prayer time and make it up later. But, as Wayne Muller reminds us in his book Sabbath, we are all created with a natural rhythm that keeps us in tune with the God who created us and with who God created us to be. When we take time to pause for rest on Sundays or pause for prayer throughout the day, we reconnect with God and ourselves. Muller reminds us that it’s not just humans who were created to live in a certain rhythm, but all of the natural world:
Oysters open their shells when the moon is high. The chambered nautilus forms a new chamber in its spiraled shell every lunar month. Bees respond to the polarization of sunlight and orient themselves by the pattern it forms in a blue sky, even when the sun is behind the clouds. Deciduous trees drop their leaves under the influence of the shorter days of autumn, and grow leaves again during the lengthening days of spring.
May you find a way within your day and week to pause, pray, and reconnect with who God created you to be.
Peace,
Jacqueline
Evotional – October 10
October 10th, 2011 by Rozolen Stanford
How many parents remember seeing the first time a baby is invited to the dinner table? Often the baby recognizes the smells as food long before they are ready to taste them. Tiny hands reach out to grab everything within reach. Food is touched and tasted and painted into hair or thrown on the floor. Even though the first attempts are often awkward, the child begins to enjoy being included at the table. By experience, they come to know the family table is a place of belonging, love and sustenance.
A couple of Sundays ago, the children of Central were invited to stand all around the Communion table to ask questions about Communion. Their big eyes were full of wonder as they followed the movement of the bread being broken and the juice as it poured into the chalice. One child gently stroked the bottom of a chalice. The children were discovering what it means to be invited to this family table too.
We don’t need to “totally understand” concepts of grace, sin or salvation to come to the Table. (Who does?) But we are all invited to the Table like any child would be invited. We are invited to come to be fed, to belong and to know we are loved.
As a prayer, I have included the lyrics of a gospel song.
“Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up Lord. Come and quench this thirsting of my Soul. Bread of heaven, feed me til I want no more. Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole. “ (“Fill My Cup Lord” by Richard Blanchard 1959)
Submitted by Jackie Kendall-Gebel
Evotional – October 2
October 5th, 2011 by Rozolen Stanford
For a week, I’ve been preoccupied with two writing projects. But what began as promising, spirited ventures of conviction and creativity quickly degenerated into mirthless exercises of skill. After submitting one soulless product I realized that, once again, I’d let my inner “Mary” get hijacked by my inner “Martha.”
Martha’s got her good points. She’s hospitable, she believes the good news, and she’s a hard worker. Unfortunately, she’s also an expert at over commitment. That probably makes her the patron saint of modern life. You know the story. Martha invites Jesus and the disciples into her home, then totally freaks out about how much she has to do. To add insult to injury, her sister Mary is just, just…sitting there. So what if Mary’s at the feet of the Master? There’s work to be done, for heaven’s sake! So Martha complains about her sister’s selfishness and laziness and begs Jesus to make Mary get it in gear.
I’ve prayed the same thing a million times. In desperation to get as much done as quickly as possible, I perennially try to harness the unruly, creative parts of my personality so that the welldisciplined, productive parts of me can get to the very important business of DOING something. But Jesus’ answer to this is the same one he gave Martha. You fret about so many things, but only one thing is needed. He doesn’t specify what that thing is, but the story gives us clues.
Mary is described as sitting at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he says. She has chosen to stop and pay attention. Her state of awareness is so blessed that God himself refuses to interrupt her for the mere business of daily life.
Since we can bank on the wisdom of the world being foolishness to God, I think it’s a safe bet to say that the thing that is needed is NOT all the food coming out hot at the same time, the grout on the kitchen counter being well‐scrubbed, or the writing project that’s technically perfect and spiritually dead.
Martha certainly has her place. Let’s not forget that Mary does, too. An entirely justifiable – and justified – place at the feet of God.
Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. (Isaiah 28:23 and 45:3)
Submitted by Erica MacCreaigh
