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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? |
| Remembering Ernie | |
| By Brad Miller on5/12/2010 3:42 PM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful morning,
Yesterday, I lost one of my heroes. Oh, and I’m not alone. I would guess that millions of people heard of his death and stopped for at least a moment, and remembered Ernie Harwell, who died at the age of 92 after a year long battle with cancer.
Ernie Harwell was “The Voice of the Detroit Tigers” for 42 years, after short stints in New York and Baltimore. In the 1980’s he became the first still-active broadcaster to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is also a resident of the Radio Hall of Fame, the Michigan Hall of Fame and the Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame. He was the only announcer to be traded for a player! In the late 1940’s, Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers wanted to hire Ernie to be the Dodgers broadcaster, but Ernie was under contract as the announcer of the Atlanta Crackers. So, a deal was struck: Ernie went to Brooklyn in exchange for Dodgers backup catcher Cliff Dapper. And the rest, as they s ... |  | |
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| | Paying Attention | |
| By Brad Miller on4/21/2010 8:49 AM | |
| Greetings!
On Monday and Tuesday of this week I had the privilege of attending a workshop put on by Fred Craddock and Mike Graves called “The Preacher as Storyteller”. It was a wonderfully enlightening couple of days as it always is when Fred Craddock is involved. Not only is he probably the finest preacher I have ever heard, he is one of the finest people I have ever met. We got to know each other when we served as founding board members of the Atlanta United Divinity Center a few years back and I still count that as an amazing blessing. Whenever I get the chance to listen to him preach or teach, I come away with something that keeps me thinking.
On Tuesday morning Fred told a story about a waitress he met at a Waffle House. He asked for cream for his coffee and she reached into her apron and pulled out about 6 of the little creamer cups. He said that he only needed one and she said, “It’s better to have more than you need than to need more than you have.” ... | | |
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| | Remembering | |
| By Brad Miller on4/14/2010 8:37 AM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful day,
Remembering can lead us to a lot of different places.
This thought crossed my mind this Sunday during Rev. Jennifer’s communion meditation. She said something along the lines that when Jesus said, “Remember me” at the Last Supper, he probably meant more than just, “think of me fondly.” He probably meant that we were to do certain things, act a certain way, as a way to “remember” him. And I think she was right.
It crossed my mind again earlier this week when I realized that my mother’s birthday is just around the corner. She’s been gone almost 12 years and the overwhelming feeling I get when I remember her is one of gratitude. Gratitude that I was so blessed to have her as my mother. Sometimes funny stories pop into my head, times when she laughed so hard she started to cry and then the laughter/crying turned into that weird noiseless laughter that left her coughing for breath. I remember times with fam ... | | |
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| | New Beginnings | |
| By Brad Miller on4/13/2010 1:52 PM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful day,
What a day we had on Sunday! It was a wonderful celebration of the great gift we have been given: new life through Jesus Christ. The music was wonderful from start to finish; the celebration of baptisms reminded us once again of what it means to be part of the Body of Christ; the baby dedications moved us to rededicate our lives to nurturing and supporting the youngest and most precious of those among us; and the welcoming of a new member lets us know that our fellowship is a vital witness to those seeking a community of faith. It was, in a word, fantastic!
Our challenge, as always, is to not let that celebration slip away from us. I firmly believe that the more we keep Easter front and center, the more we live our lives as Easter people, the more vital and fulfilling our ministry will be to all who cross our paths. Join us in the coming weeks as we seek to carry over that Easter celebration into our work in the community, our ... | | |
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| | It's almost here... | |
| By Brad Miller on3/31/2010 3:23 PM | |
| Greetings on this gorgeous day!
It has already happened…but we need it to happen again. It is almost here…but still, it seems a long way off.
That in a nutshell is what Easter seems to be all about. We will gather on Sunday to celebrate the fact that the resurrection did happen, yet we still ache for resurrection in our own lives. We know that it is almost here, but can’t it just hurry up? As much as I love Lent and the buildup to Easter…as much as I love the celebration that will take place on Sunday all over the world…as much as I thankful for what Easter means to us all, I wonder sometimes if we don’t do the celebration a disservice by concentrating so much energy on one particular celebration on one particular day.
Oh, don’t get me wrong: the resurrection of Jesus is the most amazing, miraculous, life changing event I can even imagine. I give thanks every day for the fact that through Jesus, death has been overcome. I revel in each ... | | |
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| | From the Winter Comes the Spring | |
| By Brad Miller on3/24/2010 9:00 AM | |
| Greetings!
Today is one of those days when winter seems like a distant memory…
Well, okay, not so distant. Monday morning about 8:00 a.m. I sat down at my desk, turned on my computer and waited for it to boot up so I could check my e-mail. As it was coming up, I glanced out the window to see…SNOW! And not just a flake or two that I had to strain to see and wonder if it really was snow…SNOW! Flurries that danced all around in front of me. I was in shock. Of course, it stopped within about 5 minutes, nothing stuck to the ground and it turned out to be a reasonably nice day. But still, I thought, “Please! I can’t take it any more!” I was reminded of a cousin of mine who went to college at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. Marquette is about as far north as you can get in Michigan and is known for long, harsh winters. When he enrolled there he was looking forward to lots of skiing and snow-shoeing and outdoor winter activities. He reveled ... | | |
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| | Healing Sounds | |
| By Brad Miller on3/15/2010 8:08 AM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful day,
(You may be wondering why the Midweek Missive is coming a day early this week…it is because tomorrow I will be at an all day workshop called “Stewardship in the 21st Century: A Day of Theological Discussion” and so not around to send this out! Also, since Wednesday is our office manager’s day off, the office will be closed. If you need to leave a message please do so and I’ll get back with you as soon as possible.)
This past Sunday I was so moved by the service of healing led by Rev. Linda Whitmire. It was a reminder that we all have wounds that need healing and an even bigger reminder that through our relationship with God as revealed in Jesus Christ, healing is available to us. It is not always easy, but when we open up and try and turn our grief and pain over to God, the healing process can begin. Thanks to Rev. Whitmire and to Rev. Carol Mallon, who brought the stirring story of the cup that was not designed to hold liquid ... | | |
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| | Spring Training | |
| By Brad Miller on2/25/2010 9:41 AM | |
| Greetings on this chilly, sunny day,
Yesterday afternoon I heard a familiar sound. A sound that made my heart leap just a little bit. A sound that told me without equivocation that spring is coming. A sound that I heard over and over again. The sound was that of a baseball against a bat at the Oglethorpe University baseball stadium. When I sit at my computer and look out my office window this time of year, I have an almost unobstructed view of the infield of the Oglethorpe diamond. Yesterday they were having batting practice and I could sit and watch ball after ball being hit. After a long winter, it is one of the most wonderful sounds ever. (I know that some of you don’t understand, but that’s okay, because I know Judy Mowrey does, and that’s good enough for me.)
This morning when I got into the office I saw on the calendar that yesterday was the start of spring training. I read a story about the manager of the Detroit Tigers, Jim Leyland, and his excitem ... | | |
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| Going it alone in Lent | |
| By Brad Miller on2/17/2010 11:42 AM | |
| Greetings on this cold morning,
Today is the beginning of Lent. Over the years, I have seen Lent observed in many different ways, and I have heard many explanations of what Lent it supposed to mean. The thing that has dawned on me recently is that those two issues – how to observe Lent and what Lent means are inextricably connected. Well, duh. But let me explain.
First, last and always, Lent is the most personal of all seasons of the Christian year. The fact that it ends with the most public of all Christian celebrations makes the internal disciplines of Lent all the more important. The fact is that the important thing about Lent is how it works for us, on us, to us. We can read lots of books expounding on what Lent is and how we are to observe it, but all those books are at best, loose guides from someone else’s experience, and at worse, something that sidetracks us from really looking at our experience and our own needs.
For me, Le ... | | |
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| | Ministry | |
| By Brad Miller on1/27/2010 2:17 PM | |
| The process of transforming the sanctuary continues, and trust me, it is an amazing process! While the physical transformation of the sanctuary will be impressive, there are other things that connect to that renovation that continue to amaze me.
I have already shared with you my conversation with the electrician who said he enjoyed working on churches more than most jobs because he felt like he was doing something special in helping to beautify the Lord’s House. Since that time, I have had 3 other conversations with folks from Choate Construction and some other sub-contractors. They have had questions about the church, who we are and what we believe. These are guys who have seen me every day that they have been working here, guys who have greeted me and asked what I thought about the work they were doing. But after a couple of weeks, the conversation got away from the work on the sanctuary to the work of the church. In my experience, this is not that unusual. Folks have to get a ... | | |
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