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Mid-Week Missive |
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| Author: | Brad Miller | Created: | 10/30/2007 2:52 AM |  | | What is happening at BCC? |
| Faith and Politics | |
| By Brad Miller on1/31/2008 9:19 AM | |
| Okay: enough. This stuff is starting to bug me now.
Never have religion and faith been such talked about issues in our political process. Oh, there were questions in the 1960 election as to whether a practicing Roman Catholic could be President and be trusted to do what was best for the country rather than follow the “instructions” of the pope. Just about the time that the question began to seem very antiquated, the same questions now surface with a candidate who is a devout Mormon. Reporters begin asking questions like, are Mormons really Christians or is it a cult? Will the power structure of the Mormon church dictate their wishes to a Mormon President? Then, we saw a candidate come on the scene who was once a pastor and a self-declared evangelical Christian. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity among reporters and pundits talking about “the evangelical vote” and their power in this election. Then a candidate who had a non-Christian father has had the “authenticity” of his Chris ... |  | |
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| | Resolved | |
| By Brad Miller on1/24/2008 9:56 AM | |
| Well, we are now firmly into the New Year and let me be the first to ask: how are your resolutions going? It’s a loaded question, isn’t it? We sometimes make grand plans that have little hope of being fulfilled, then we get frustrated and pretty soon we have dropped the whole thing altogether. So, I’m not trying to rub salt in the wound; I only bring it up because I have had a few of you ask me about something I said in a sermon the last Sunday of 2007. It had to do with a resolution that I had pledged myself to this year, and challenged the congregation to do the same. For those who asked (and for those who didn’t) here it is: In 2008, I resolve to honor God, to do what God would have me do, so that I might be the person God would have me be.
This could take in a whole lot of things, couldn’t it? Exercise, eating right, stopping smoking, spending more time with your family, learning something new… they all involve a similar thing. That is, being a good steward of what God has gi ... | | |
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| | Remembering | |
| By Brad Miller on1/16/2008 3:48 PM | |
| It’s funny how something simple like a certain smell, a song, a not-often-heard phrase, a ray of light through a colored window, can take you back to a certain time or place in our lives. Today, I have experienced that feeling in a couple of ways.
First, when the weather forecaster laid out what might be in store for us over the next 36 hours, I was taken right back to getting up early when I was a boy and waiting to hear on the radio whether our school district was one of those that had called off school because of a snow storm. It is a wonderful sense of anticipation as they slowly go through the names of the different districts and they are on the “b’s” – Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham…then they finally get to the “c’s” – Canton, Clarkston…. “C’mon,” we would say, “get to the “d’s” already!” And then they started…Davison, Dexter…wait, that means they went right by “Detroit”! The sad truth is that Detroit schools almost never shut down. Most of us could walk to school, so why would they? But ... | | |
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| | A New Beginning...Again | |
| By Brad Miller on12/19/2007 12:44 PM | |
| Greetings!
I bet you have heard the old brainteaser that asks, “Do Christmas and New Years Day ever fall in the same year?” Our first inclination may be to say no, but of course they do – every year! Still, there is something appealing to me to look at Christmas as happening “this year”, while New Years Day will always be “next year.” And this is not just because I am a baseball fan and “next year” is the eternal cry of everyone who didn’t win the World Series this year. (Although, we Detroit Tigers fans have every reason to believe that “next year” is finally going to be “the year”. Witness the trade that brought Miguel Cabrera AND Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers last week…it has Peter Gammons calling the Tigers “a modern era ‘Murderers Row’…the team to beat in 2008.” But, I digress…)
There is no doubt that the new year offers us a psychological new start in lots of ways. New Years resolutions abound on January 1st as we all try to use this important, if artificial, starting poin ... | | |
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| | Memorable Lines and Great Stories | |
| By Brad Miller on12/13/2007 1:45 PM | |
| I read scripture the same way I watch movies. Sometimes the breadth and the depth of the story is so wonderful that I may not be able to recount a single line of dialogue but the point is so clearly and beautifully made that I will never forget it. For me, “Sophie’s Choice” was such a movie. I don’t recall any scenes or speeches, but the agony of “the choice” haunts me to this day.
Sometimes, a movie is great and has some lines that are just as memorable as the story…remember any of these? “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid”…”God made me fast, and when I run, I feel God’s pleasure”…”You ask me why I am crying. I’m crying because I don’t know if I love you anymore, and I don’t know if I can go on without that.” (If you can identify all three of those great movies, let me know and you will have my unending respect!)
Occasionally, the story is not that great or even awful, but a memorable line will never leave my psyche. Who knows this line and can tell me what bad m ... | | |
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| | Stop and Enjoy | |
| By Brad Miller on12/5/2007 11:24 AM | |
| | So, here’s how my morning started out: Just before heading out the door to go to church, I began to pull some things out of the freezer and cupboard to put in the crockpot for dinner tonight. While I was doing that I was also thinking about what I had on my plate today. Write a midweek missive, firm up some plans for the Christmas Eve service, attend staff meeting, make some phone calls to some folks who are a bit under the weather, make sure our Advent readers are on board, continue to work on my sermon for Sunday…and then the phone rang. It was someone I needed to talk to, nothing of earth shattering importance, but still, a call I wanted to take. So, as I prepared the ingredients for dinner, I sat with the phone crooked on my shoulder and carried on the conversation, some of which had to do with things that I had to do today. When the call was over, I put the phone in it’s cradle, started to put the ingredients and seasoning back in the cupboards and refrigerator, cleaned up the counters, put the cut ... | | |
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| | Preparation and Celebration | |
| By Brad Miller on11/29/2007 11:06 AM | |
| Greetings on this bright November day!
Sometimes I forget just what this season we call Advent is all about. I know we use it to prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and at the same time prepare for the promised return of Jesus. It is a time of celebrating what we have been given, and a time of preparing our hearts and lives for the future. It is a time for remembering and celebrating the past and then using those memories to rededicate our lives to fulfilling God’s will in the future. To put it in a nutshell, it’s about preparation and celebration. Preparing and celebrating…two things that we can not do enough of.
This past week, Carol and I were able to spend some time in Charleston, South Carolina. My cousin Jeananne and her husband John live there and my sister Kay Lynn and her husband Bruce came down for Thanksgiving, too. It was a nice relaxing week with way too much food and lots of good conversation, fun and reminiscing. At one point my sister and ... | | |
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| | Give Thanks | |
| By Brad Miller on11/20/2007 9:46 AM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful day!
Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite times of the year. Growing up in Michigan it meant that it was growing increasingly colder and that winter – and skiing and sledding and skating – would soon be firmly entrenched. It meant that we would gather with cousins and grandparents and catch up and celebrate all that we had been given. It was a day when someone would always ask the question: “What are you thankful for?” It is a question I think we should ask often.
This Thanksgiving day, I hope you will take some time to really contemplate that question. The answer will be different for each of us, but at the heart of all the things that I can imagine we might be thankful for, one leaps to the top of the list: I am thankful for the witness of Jesus Christ and the grace of God that has given me every good thing in my life. Carol and our wonderful partnership in marriage, my family and their love, my friends ... | | |
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| | Always Listening | |
| By Brad Miller on11/14/2007 12:29 PM | |
| | Greetings on this beautiful day! (And it may rain today!)This noon I attended a monthly meeting of the Atlanta area Disciples of Christ ministers. Being so close to the assembly, and having had a chance to talk with most everyone there just this past weekend, I almost decided not to go. I have lots to do, meetings this evening…you know the drill. But, I decided that I should. These meetings are great chances to catch up with colleagues in a low key atmosphere, hear a though provoking program and have a good lunch. So I went.The presenter this week was Phil Foster a minister and psychotherapist in Decatur. He was presenting a program on Rumi, a mystic poet of the 13th century who came from a Sufi Islamic tradition. Now, poetry is not usually my bag. But as Phil talked about Rumi’s journey, about mysticism in general and then read some poems I found myself really pulled in, my imagination whirring. I was especially taken with a poem in which Rumi was talking about living in the world. At one point he wrote, “Al ... | | |
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| | In Control? | |
| By Brad Miller on11/7/2007 3:18 PM | |
| Greetings on this crisp fall day!
Yesterday I had one of those experiences at the office that, while small and seemingly insignificant, made me feel, however briefly, like I was in control of things. Let me explain:
Our new administrative assistant, Ruth Luckett, has been with us since Thursday November 1st and has already shown herself to be a nice addition to our staff. She has been working with Nichole Woodward to learn the computer software we use here; with Judy Mowrey to learn about office procedures and tasks; and with Chris Brooks to become more familiar with our website and how to maintain it. A lot has already been thrown at her and she has handled it all with good humor and grace.
Yesterday afternoon however, something suddenly was amiss. While attempting to update the prayer list on our website, she was suddenly unable to complete the task and the computer was denying her access to the program she needed. I tried to bring it up on my compute ... | | |
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