Hebron's Future: It's Time to Act

Abraham Lincoln said it: “We must plan for the future, because people who stay in the present will remain in the past.” These words of Lincoln have been in the forefront of my mind for some time now.

Many years ago—2001 to be exact—I drove overnight to the suburbs of Atlanta to visit my parents. Upon arriving, I walked into the house and was greeted by a strange sight. The kitchen table was filled with financial documents and spreadsheets of my parents’ assets. I had never seen them before. Such topics were never discussed in my parents’ home; they were taboo. But here was the data, out in the open.

My father said, “Doug, I’ve got something to show you,” and he sat me down. To say that I wanted him to cut to the chase was an understatement. After spending eleven hours in the car, my interest in my parents’ financials was tepid at best. However, as I was about to excuse myself, my father looked me in the eye and said, “There’s only one thing that remains a concern for me, and that’s your mother’s well-being. Suppose the Lord calls me home, what will happen to her here in this house? I’ve found a retirement community about an hour and a half from here and I’d like you to see it.” I said, “Let’s go.” And with that, the three of us were off, headed to Gainesville, Georgia, to the place they would live out the remaining years of their lives.

Over the past two years I’ve had similar questions about Hebron and its future. Perhaps it’s the frequency of questions like, “When are we going to hire an Assistant Pastor?” and “Are we ever going to improve the Barclay Building?” Or, maybe it’s the fact that some of the current ministry team at Hebron are getting a little long in the tooth, especially me! The truth is that all of these elements began to converge in the past two years, prompting me to act.

For the last eighteen months, the elders, staff, and I have been hard at work developing a multi-year plan of ministry for Hebron that we are now ready to discuss with you in some detail. This plan was mentioned at our congregational meeting in the Fall of last year; now we are ready to provide far more specifics. This plan sets out an eight and a half year timeline on which capital expansion, staffing, and new ministry initiatives are all undertaken.

In an attempt to reach more of you, this congregational gathering is scheduled for Friday, May 5, at 6:30 pm in the Barclay Building. An array of wonderful desserts from Oakmont Bakery and other fine kitchens will be provided for all. Children are welcome! To help us plan, please let us know that you are coming. Register online at hebrononline.org, email hebronchurch@yahoo.com, or call the church office.

Please make every effort to join us for an exciting presentation of where the Lord may take us in the coming years.

The Source: The Risen Christ

Dr. Lawrence J. “Larry” Crabb, Jr. is a Christian counselor, author of twenty-five books, Bible teacher, and seminar speaker. He is also the founder and director of “New Ways Ministries”, serves as a spiritual director for the American Association of Christian Counselors, and since 1996 has been the Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence of Colorado Christian University.

Years ago Larry came to see Brennan Manning with a request for spiritual direction. A spirit of bitterness had taken root in his heart and he couldn’t seem to shake it. As he’s sitting in front of Manning confessing the ugly details, Brennan starts to tear up. Instantly Crabb says, “I thought, ‘Oh great! I’ve just triggered something in Brennan’s past that’s now gripped him. Now I’ve got to take care of him!’”

He says, “As I was adding pride and noble self-pity to my already present bitterness, Brennan says sweetly, ‘Larry, every time I’m with you, I’m so drawn to Jesus.’

“I couldn’t have been more surprised. ‘Why?’ I asked. Brennan said, ‘Because you hate anything that gets in between you and Abba.’ “I sang at the top of my lungs in my car all the way home! Someone had seen me with the eyes of redeeming and hopeful love. ‘So that’s the Gospel!’ I remember thinking to myself.”

Indeed it is! The Gospel of Jesus Christ consistently testifies to the intense love and unwavering devotion of Jesus to His own. He is the Author and Sustainer of our faith. And any time we allow anything to get in the way of Him we are restless for His resurrection presence!

Every Easter brings to my mind the story of the Russian, Comrade Lunachatsky, who was lecturing in Moscow’s largest Assembly Hall shortly after the Bolshevist Revolution (ca. 1918). His theme was Religion: Opium of the People.

“All the Christian mysteries are myths,” he said, “supplanted by the light of science. Marxist science is the light that more than substitutes for the legends of Christianity.”

Lunachatsky spoke at great length. When he finished, he was so pleased with himself that he asked if anyone in the audience of some seven-thousand had anything to add.

A twenty-six-year-old Russian Orthodox priest, just ordained, stepped forward. First, he apologized to the Commissar for his ignorance and awkwardness. The Commissar looked at him scornfully, “I’ll give you two minutes, no more.” “It won’t take very long,” the priest assured him. He mounted the platform, turned to the audience and in a loud voice declared, “Christ is Risen!”

And as one man, that vast audience stood to their feet and roared, “He Is Risen Indeed!”

May that response find an echo in your heart and mine, because the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the source, the reason, and the basis of our faith, hope, and love—not to mention a desperate longing for intimacy!

Lent: A Time to Focus on Your Identity in Christ

From the first centuries of the Christian church, Lent has been known as the 40 days prior to Easter. Lent is when Christians set aside time for reflection on Jesus Christ—His suffering and His sacrifice, His life, death, burial and resurrection.

However, in 313 A.D., it took on an additional focus. When the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, he made it legal (preferable) for Roman citizens to become Christians; and suddenly the church had a flood of adult baptisms. (Excuse the pun.)  While that brought much joy, it also posed a challenge. How was the church to ensure that these converts were serious about Jesus? They concluded that baptizing them  alone wasn’t enough. More was needed to grow them up into true disciples of Jesus Christ.

So the church developed a 40-day course of preparation that included Bible reading, meditation, study, and prayer. This was a “40-Day Spiritual Adventure” or “40-Days of Purpose,” to borrow from current popular titles. The idea was that during these 40 days believers could prepare themselves for their own baptisms or prepare others for their baptism.

Thus, Lent became a time not only to focus on the suffering and death of Jesus, but a time to focus on a Christian’s union with Christ in His death and resurrection. Romans 6:3-4 served as a proper theme text: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was reaised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

This put the emphasis not only on God’s gift of forgiveness (justification), but also on the gift of new life in Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit (sanctification). In this way Lent became a time for new and experienced Christians to live into their true identity by denying themselves, putting off the cares and concerns of the flesh, and putting on the works of the Spirit of God.

Since September we have been engaged in an in-depth study of the Book of Galatians. In January we began the second half of our series entitled, “Freedom,” which is scheduled to end on April 9, Palm Sunday.

Conveniently, much of the second half of Paul’s letter to the Galatians explores the same reality the early church recognized—our identity in Christ. Therefore, during this Lenten season, we are going to provide you with several tools that will immerse you into who you are in Christ.

Beginning on Sunday, March 5, we invite you to visit Hebron’s prayer room, located directly under the sanctuary. (Enter through the Tower entrance and follow the directional signs.) Each week an aspect of our identity in Christ will be the focus of printed materials provided in the prayer room. Included will be other daily companion passages that reinforce each aspect of our identity in Christ. Additionally, there will be stations and activities prepared for private Bible reading, meditation, and prayer. 

The prayer room will be open on:

Sunday—9:00 am to noon

Monday through Thursday

1:00 to 4:30 pm

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday

7:00 to 9:00 pm

Saturday—10:00 am to noon

In addition, we will make available all of the written materials via social media and on Sunday mornings.

A Fiery Love

February brings with it the convergence of two notable days—Valentine’s Day and the Heart Breakfast. Both have, at their core, a common theme— “Love”. And while the love of Valentine’s Day is almost exclusively horizontal, the love celebrated at the Heart Breakfast is supremely vertical.

Brennan Manning, the oft-quoted Franciscan priest and hero of many Gospel-grasping Christians, was fond of saying that after 40 years of ministry and nearly 70 years of life, he was absolutely convinced that when we stand before God on that final day, He will ask us only one question, “Did you believe that I loved you? (That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I loved to hear the sound of your voice?)”

It’s only that knowledge, driven deep down into the heart, that will transform a life from irreligion or religion to something radically and sustainably new. Indeed, it is just that point that Paul is emphasizing throughout his letter to the Galatians.

In 1573 John Donne was born in London, England. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of meta-physical poets (those who used extended metaphors to communicate truth). Listen to the way he frames the power of Jesus’ love to transform his life:

“Take me to You. Imprison me. For I, accept You enthrall me, never shall be free or ever chaste, except You ravish me.”

In other words, what Donne is saying is, “Unless You, Lord Jesus, ravish me, I will always be putting myself in the arms of another. Until you ravish me, I will be looking for love and acceptance in everyone and everything but You.” You see, Donne knew what Paul knew. He knew that it’s only the fiery love of God in Christ that can bring real spiritual change in a life. And it’s coming to know and experience that, that is at the heart of true discipleship. This week I’ve been thinking a lot about true discipleship and Hebron’s ministry. You see, there are two ways to approach discipleship—the human way and His way.

Richard Lovelace, Emeritus Professor of Church History at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, once said that if you have a rod of iron that is bent, there are two ways to straighten it. First, you can take the rod into your hands, or some straightening device, and through the exertion of extreme external power, you can bend it back into shape. But once you do that, the rod is weaker than it was before, because there’s been tremendous stress applied to the rod and many of the fibers within it have been broken. In fact, if you were to continue to exert the same force, there’s a high likelihood of breaking the rod in two. Though it looks straight, it’s far weaker than it was before.

However, there’s a second way to straighten a rod and that’s to put it in the fire. And when iron is red hot, when the heat of the fire has penetrated to the core of the rod, you can shape it into a truer, stronger, straighter rod than ever before. As a result of its tempering by fire, the rod is transformed.

Lovelace says that’s the difference between moral instruction and human attempts to follow it and true discipleship. It’s only through the application of the Gospel—the fiery love of God in Jesus for you—that real godly change can occur in your life. Through the application of the Gospel you can put yourself in the fire of Jesus’ ravishing love and all your idols will begin falling away. May this month of love be marked by a fiery feeling of His love in the depths of your heart.

Responding to God's Call

Several years ago I remember receiving a note from a young woman who was living abroad. She had been away from Hebron for several years when she wrote to say that she was heartened to receive the Hebron Herald and see that there were no appeals for money in it, but instead, wonderful descriptions of ministry in which Hebron was engaged.

As I sat back to ponder her words, two thoughts came to mind. (1) It had been several years since we had conducted a stewardship campaign at Hebron. Moreover, we have made very few appeals for finances over the years. (2) How is it possible to decouple the wonderful descriptions of ministry from the resources necessary to make them happen?

Consider the reach of Hebron’s ministry over the last few years. In March 2011 we helped incorporate The Blessing Board as a separate 501(c)(3) organization and spin it out of Hebron to enable its growth. At that time The Blessing Board budget was $24,000 a year with some 30 regular volunteers and 275 families served. Today its budget is $370,000 with over 300 regular volunteers and over 1000 families served.

The same year we began the Holly Alm Camp Scholarship Fund Golf Outing to assist kids in going to camp. That year we raised $13,000 and were able to send over 40 kids to one of a half dozen Christian camps. Over the last five years we have raised more than $140,000 for HACSF and have sent more than 700 kids to more than a dozen Christian camps.

In the spring of last year we saw the Lord bring to fruition a decade of prayers and planning with the opening of Lost and Found Pharmacy. Through the prayerful generosity and hard work of so many at Hebron, what was once a dream is now a reality.

This is only a small slice of what the Lord has been doing through the commitment of time, talent, and treasure of our church body. Add to this list the funding and growth of the Caribbean Youth Network, the tens of thousands of dollars that have been raised by the Sara Wally Walk for the homeless in Pittsburgh, several years of gathering, giving, and serving through the Beyond Campaigns, and you’ve got quite a demonstration of God’s favor on and through Hebron.

But now, for the first time in a long time, Hebron has a sizable operational deficit of nearly $49,000. We were compelled to announce our need at the Congregational Meeting on October 23 and in the Sunday bulletin and E-newsletter each week. Since first recognizing the deficit, nearly a third of it has been erased.

Our desire is not to pull back and redirect our energy away from carrying the Gospel beyond our walls. Instead, we are united in sounding the alarm among our Hebron family. We are asking each of you to prayerfully consider what you can do to eliminate this year’s deficit and provide for our financial needs in the coming year.

We are dedicated to continuing to respond to God’s call beyond ourselves. What we need in order to do that is you and your faithful giving. You see, that young woman was right. Every ministry God has led us to start and grow is exciting; but like any growth, it requires nutrients and nutrients cost money. After all, death is cheap. It’s living and growing that costs.

Christmas 2016

Worshipping around Tables

This year Christmas Sunday is Christmas Day! It’s been FIVE YEARS since the last time this happened and we want to mark it with a unique celebration of Christ and Christmas.

In past years we’ve marked these Christmas Sundays with the giving of a gift like a coffee mug, a Christmas ornament, and a personalized flashlight. This year we are planning a far more interactive gift; a gift that recognizes that we are a family of God planted in this place to love each other and serve each other.

This year we are inviting you to come and join with your Hebron family this Christmas Day to worship the Incarnate God who came to rescue us and establish us as His Body in the world.

Saturday night, Christmas Eve, there will be three worship services: 5:00 pm with candlelighting, and a presentation of the Christmas story. 7:00 and 9:00 pm will be traditional services in the Sanctuary with candlelighting and carols.

On Christmas morning we will retain our normal Sunday morning worship schedule at 8:15, 9:15, and 10:45. As part of our worship, we will be serving breakfast to everyone who attends. Our desire is to extend our worship beyond singing, preaching, and giving to eating together around a table as Jesus did so often with those He loved. Our hope is that you will invite friends and family to visit Hebron on Christmas morning  and expose them to a wider view of worship through the gift of hospitality. We know that Christmas Day can be full of plans, but we’d love for you to plan to worship with your Hebron family on Christmas Day! We look forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus with you and your family and friends.

The "His Way" Method

It’s said that Frank Sinatra never really liked the song. He thought it was self-serving and self-indulgent, but Paul Anka sold him on it.

In 1967, while in France, Paul Anka heard the French song, “Comme D’Habitude,”

 (translation “as usual”) a song about a Frenchman whose life and love had been killed by the tedium and monotony of everyday life. And on the way back to New York, at 3:00 am, Anka re-wrote the lyrics and titled them, “My Way”. He then called Sinatra who was performing in Las Vegas and convinced him to listen to it.

On December 30, 1968, Frank Sinatra recorded it and, as they say, “the rest is history”. In fact, in the minds of many, “My Way” is Sinatra’s signature song; though he said he came to loath it.

Now all of us have known people who seem to epitomize the “my way” approach to life. There’s a certain panache to it; a certain rugged individualism to which every soul aspires. And yet, there is no freedom there; no true thanksgiving. There is the illusion of self-sufficiency; but the truth is, the “my way” road is, to quote the grandfather of my good friend, “a tough crust of bread.”

Now think of the opposite approach. Paul would call it the “His way” method. Listen to what he says in Ephesians 1, “In love God predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ…” What a contrast to the “my way” approach those three words detail— “through Jesus Christ”. I love what Charles Spurgeon said of those words so many years ago:

Some Christians seem to be accepted by God through their own efforts and the experiences of their lives. When their spirit is lively, and their hopes bright, they think God accepts them, for they feel so high, so heavenly minded, so drawn above earth!

But when their souls cleave to the dust, they are the victims of fear that they are no longer accepted.

If they could but see that all their high joys do not exalt them, and all their low despondencies do not really depress them in their Father’s sight, but that they stand accepted in the One who never alters, the One who is always the One God loves, always perfect, always without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, how much happier they would be, and how much more they would honor the Savior!

Rejoice then, believer, in this: you are accepted “in the One He loves.” You look within, and  you say, “There’s nothing acceptable here!” but look at Christ, and see if there is not everything acceptable there. Your sins trouble you; but God has cast your sins behind His back, and you are accepted in the Righteous One. You have to fight with corruption, and to wrestle with temptation, but you are already accepted in Him who has overcome the powers of evil. The devil tempts you, be of good cheer, he can’t destroy you, for you are accepted in Him who has broken Satan’s head.

Know by full assurance your glorious standing. Even glorified souls are not more accepted than you are. They are only accepted in heaven “in the One He loves,” and you are even now accepted in Christ after the same manner.

I’ll take “His way” over “my way” any day.

It’s hard to imagine a greater gift to celebrate this Thanksgiving than to be found in Him. Happy Thanksgiving, indeed!

The Journey Continues

“The sea was as smooth as a river and the breezes the sweetest in the world,” the record of his first voyage says. They saw a whale, a sign that they were near land, for whales always remain near land. Or maybe not, the sea birds and seaweed were supposed to be signs of land too; but still there was no sight of land.

So was the voyage across the sea of Christopher Columbus and his men. As the voyage dragged on, Columbus began keeping two sets of log books—one gave a true tally of the leagues they had traveled, the other a false set of distances to tell the crew because they worried about how far they had gone from home.

That’s the temptation on any journey involving time, distance, and sacrifice.

One time Jesus was setting out on a journey with His disciples when a man ran up and knelt before Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And after telling Jesus that he had kept the law from the time of his youth, Mark says that Jesus looked at him and loved him saying, “One thing you lack, go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor...and come and follow me.” But the man couldn’t do it. Mark says, “Disheartened...he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.”

And after some words about camels, needles, and the kingdom of God, Peter gets personal. “Lord,” he says, “See, we’ve left everything and followed you.” And Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel, who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time...and in the age to come…” But oh, how often our minds and hearts tell us otherwise.

Sometimes when I think about the challenges the Lord has set before us at Hebron I think of Columbus and Peter. While many of you have not been on this ship called “Hebron” as long as I have, the length of the journey and the size of the waves can prompt us to grow weary and say, “Haven’t I given enough time and treasure to this enterprise?” For some of us there’s a temptation lurking that says, “Wouldn’t it be easier to get off this ship, or at least go below deck and take a long snooze?”

But like Christopher Columbus, to some extent, and Jesus to the fullest extent, the destination is worth all the time, distance, and sacrifice. Indeed, for Jesus the journey is as joyous as the destination, with miracles of grace showing up over every wave.

These days the volume of grace that has attended our journey together is legion. A variety of new ministries have taken shape over the last couple of years in which Hebron remains a growing catalyst like The Blessing Board, Lost and Found Pharmacy, and initiatives like the Holly Alm Camp Scholarship Fund and the Sara Wally Homeless Fund. In addition, a new vista has opened to us with the arrival of the Parsons family and their wonderful PitCare Ministry.

And yet, the waves are high and the land is not quite in sight. We struggle with meeting all of the needs the Lord has set before us. We struggle knowing and assimilating all the new people who are considering making Hebron their home. We are experiencing a lag in financial support that needs to be remedied. The waves are formidable, and yet our Captain is much different than Christopher Columbus. He doesn’t keep two sets of logs; only one. In the midst of the high waves and the absence of land sighting, He simply says, “Trust me!” And when we do, there’s a calm that comes over us, a rest that leads us to say again, “I’m in Lord, all in!”

A Journey Into Grace

This Fall we invite you on a journey through what has been called, “The Magna Charta of biblical Christianity”. Others describe it as a field of spiritual dynamite; a little bomb that explodes all the myths and false allegiances we cling to as Christians.

Immediately upon studying it and expounding it, Martin Luther drafted his 95 theses and the Protestant Reformation was born. Throughout the centuries the Book of Galatians has been the touchstone of radical change in the church of Jesus Christ. And no change was more dramatic than what happened in the 1730s when a small band of believers got together and began seeking God for revival and renewal in the Christian Church in Great Britain and around the world.

It’s said that when William Holland got his hands on Martin Luther’s preface to his commentary on the Book of Galatians and read it, he gave it to Charles Wesley to read. After they had both read it individually, they began to read it aloud to each other. Holland says:

“There came such a power over me that I cannot well describe it. My great burden fell off in an instant. My heart was so filled with love and peace that I burst into tears. I almost thought I saw our Savior. My companions seeing me so affected, fell on their knees and prayed. And afterwards when I went into the street, I scarcely thought I could feel the ground I trod upon.”

Every night, thereafter, he took Luther’s preface to someone else’s house and said, “Let me read this to you.”

Walter Marshall, in his book, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, rightly says, “By nature, you are completely addicted to a legal method of salvation. Even after you become a Christian by believing the Gospel, your heart is still addicted to salvation by works...You find it hard to believe that you should get any blessing before you work for it.” It’s epidemic!

And that’s the beauty of Galatians. It’s all Gospel. It’s the Holy Spirit’s antidote to religion and our self-dependence. It’s the antidote to slavish obedience predicated on our own merit.

Retired Reformed Theological Seminary professor, Dr. Douglas Kelly once said, “If you want to make people mad, preach the law. If you want to make them really, really mad, preach grace.”

Right on! The law offends us because it tells us what to do—most of the time we hate being told what to do. But grace offends us even more, because grace tells us that there’s nothing we can do - that everything has already been done by someone other than us. If there’s something we hate more than being told what to do, it’s being told that we can’t do anything, that we can’t earn anything—that we are helpless, weak, and needy. And that’s exactly what the Gospel tells us!

The Gospel tells us it’s all Jesus. It’s all grace. It’s all we need  every day, and Galatians reminds us of that in a powerful way. I can’t wait to dig in with you and ask the Lord for another great awakening.