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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? |
| Because... | |
| By Brad Miller on8/27/2008 2:34 PM | |
| Greetings on this drizzly day,
This past Sunday the sermon was about baptism and it’s meaning in our individual lives and the life of the church. I looked at where our founders came down on the issue of baptism – believers baptism vs. infant baptism; sprinkling verses immersion; symbol vs. reality – and where the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) stand today. It is an important topic, and it can be a challenging topic. Many of us who were not raised in the Disciple tradition sometimes feel a tug between how we were raised, and what our church practices today. Many of us who were raised in the Disciples tradition can remember a time where what we accept today was not necessarily what was acceptable years ago. But all of us are here now, and it’s important that we share our experiences and our beliefs on the subject. Many of you have shared your experiences and your beliefs with me, and so I’d like to share my experience.
I am one of the “pious unimmersed ... |  | |
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| | Singin' Like We Mean It! | |
| By Brad Miller on8/21/2008 11:54 AM | |
| Greetings on this wonderful day!
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought we were going to a worship service. It was after all, Sunday night, and a time when lots of people go to church. There were plenty of people making their way from the parking lot to their seats. When we got inside, I noticed that the back of the pavilion was almost full, but people in the front were coming in a bit more slowly. There seemed to be lots of breaking of the bread and sharing of the cup going on, so it was almost like communion. And to top it all off, besides Carol and me, there were three members of BCC present that we knew about: An elder, a deacon and the chair of the board! They had much better seats than we did, but they spotted us and came up to say hello. Hugs and handshakes went all around and it was just like the “Community Greeting” time before our worship. Yep, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought we were about to worship.
But, of course, it ... | | |
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| | What A Gift! | |
| By Brad Miller on8/13/2008 2:19 PM | |
| Greetings on this gray day,
Last week we had a great “Promotion Sunday” gathering in the fellowship hall during the Sunday School hour. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, a chance to celebrate the importance of our Christian Education ministry at BCC, and an opportunity to let our kids know how much they mean to us. Under the leadership of our Director of Christian Education, Debbie Kinney, our Christian Education ministry has become one of our signature ministries. When you get a chance, give Debbie and the whole CE team a word of thanks.
At the Promotion gathering, we played a Bible Trivia game that resulted in 16 backpacks being loaded with school supplies. (Don’t ask me to explain how this worked, just trust that it did!) We had a great time displaying our Bible knowledge and doing something good for someone else. You see, these backpacks were being filled with supplies and then donated to the clients of the Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Servi ... | | |
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| | A New Start | |
| By Brad Miller on8/7/2008 1:34 PM | |
| Greetings on this sticky day!
As much as the weather says otherwise, summer is winding down. School started for some Georgia counties this week and will start for almost everyone else next week. Vacations are winding up. College football teams are starting to practice. Halloween decorations are out in some stores. Baseball season is winding down … much too quickly for the Detroit Tigers. There is no getting around it: summer is almost gone.
For me, the end of summer is a bittersweet time. Bitter because of the end of the more relaxed atmosphere of the summer; sweet because it means that the programs of the church are about to crank up for another year of witnessing the love and grace of Jesus Christ in our lives! It all kicks off this Sunday with “Promotion Sunday” for our school aged children. Instead of our normal Sunday school classes, all ages – children and adults – will gather in the fellowship hall at 9:45. We will begin with coffee and donuts, the ... | | |
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| | Recycle. Renew. Restore. | |
| By Brad Miller on7/16/2008 2:46 PM | |
| Greetings!
When God created the heavens and the earth, humans were given dominion over all living things. The animals of the ground, the birds of the air, the fish in the seas. The plants that beautify and sustain. All of these things are important to God’s awesome creation. All of these things are under our care. They are under our care because we have the ability to make good use of these things. And because if we don’t take wise care of these things, we will ultimately suffer. How might that be? If we hunt animals to depletion, if we abuse the land through bad planting processes, if we pollute the earth so that plants and birds and animals can’t survive…well, we won’t either. I once heard someone scoff at the idea that if we don’t do something to clean up our environment the earth would not survive. Until I heard their reasoning: “Believe me, we don’t need to clean up the environment to save the earth. The earth will survive. We need clean up the environment to save ourse ... | | |
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| | We Call Ourselves Disciples | |
| By Brad Miller on7/9/2008 2:43 PM | |
| Greetings on this hazy, lazy summer day,
Yesterday I was talking with someone who had been told I was a minister and he asked what denomination I was affiliated with and I replied, “The Christian Church (Disicples of Christ).” He said he had never heard of it and I went into my explanation of how we are set up, what makes us unique among Christian denominations, what denominations we are most like, etc. It is a conversation that I have with a fairly large number of people. Depending on what kind of day I have had, how I am feeling, what the attitude is like of the person I am talking with, I may answer enthusiastically or not. What I mean by that Is, on most days I am thankful for the opportunity to talk with someone about our church, our denomination, what we believe, what I believe. But there are some days when I just kind of sigh and half-wish I was a Presbyterian or a Methodist or a Baptist or a Lutheran that everyone has heard of! Luckily, those days don’t come very often.& ... | | |
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| | Serious Fun | |
| By Brad Miller on6/25/2008 9:49 AM | |
| Greetings!
This church stuff is serious business.
We do after all deal with a lot of serious issues, and it is something that I do take very seriously. But there is a difference between taking things seriously and always being serious. What I mean by that is that ought to be plenty of room for fun in our faith walk. And this past week, I was part of two examples of just how important having some serious fun can be.
The first was last Friday night in Decatur. By my guess at least a couple of thousand people gathered in the Decatur Square for the city’s annual “Beach Party.” It had an added attraction for some of us here at BCC because the entertainment for the night was “Terry Lee and the G.T.’s” featuring our own Terry Evans as the front man. The night was warm but was perfect for a night out with good friends and great music. The good friends were there: by my count about 40 folks from BCC came to celebrate the end of a work week, da ... | | |
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| | Our Best for God | |
| By Brad Miller on6/19/2008 8:14 AM | |
| Over the course of the 60 year history of Brookhaven Christian Church, there have been several changes in the structures that have housed this great ministry. First, it was the little house on Colonial Drive that got us going. Then, when the membership began to outgrow that location, property was purchased on the corner of Lanier and Peachtree. For awhile the congregation met at Oglethorpe University, utilizing their auditorium as a sanctuary. Then, in 1958, the first building on the church’s present site was built. Twice in the next 30 years the building was expanded and renovated and then, in 2001, the last building expansion effort ended with new offices, classrooms, a youth room, a community room and a beautiful fellowship hall. Why were all these changes undertaken? So that God’s work could continue to flourish and the kingdom of God could grow.
We have done a great job at growing this physical plant to serve our needs, but some are now wondering if it isn’t time to take a l ... | | |
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| | One Church | |
| By Brad Miller on6/11/2008 10:40 AM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful morning!
Earlier this week I received a phone call from my friend and colleague Jonathon Holston, Senior Minister at St. James United Methodist Church. He remembered a conversation we had a while back when we were talking about the different forms of baptism. It had taken place at a meeting of the Brookhaven Ministers group, an ecumenical group made up of Disciple, Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopalian, United Methodist, Lutheran, and United Church of Christ ministers. Part of the discussion centered around how we all practiced baptism in our different traditions. I let them know that Disciples practiced believers baptism where a conscious decision is made by the person to be baptized. This differs from infant baptism where parents take the baptismal vows on behalf of the child, and then at the age of 12 or 13 the child chooses whether or not they will confirm these vows for themselves through a service of confirmation. I was quick to point out that Disc ... | | |
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| | Camp: Sacred Space | |
| By Brad Miller on6/4/2008 11:17 AM | |
| Greetings on this steamy day,
As many of you know, when I was growing up, I was lucky enough to be able to go to camp every summer, all summer long! How was that possible? My parents ran the camp, Conely Methodist Camp on the St. Mary’s River in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula. (You’ve heard what they say about the U.P., eh? God created the heavens and the earth and learning from his mistakes, created the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.) That camp holds a very special place in my heart. Besides being a beautiful part of the world where we could spend our time swimming in the river, hiking through the woods, playing baseball or volleyball on the camp grounds, it was also a place where I connected with many, many friends. Year after year, families would return to the camp, and I would get to renew friendships from the previous summers. For years, if I ran into someone and we somehow thought we knew each other, but couldn’t quite figure out from where, I would eventually ask, “Di ... | | |
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