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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? |
| Laughter: The Best Medicine | |
| By Brad Miller on9/29/2010 2:45 PM | |
| Greetings on this lovely day,
Something really important hit me today: Lately, I just don’t laugh enough. Here’s how I figured this out:
I had to go over to the Child Development Center this morning to talk to one of the teachers. Valischka also serves as one of our nursery/child care workers on Sunday mornings and for special events. I was just going over to check in about some upcoming dates. I stopped in at the office and Mary Mallard told me that Valischka was with her kids on the playground so I headed that way. As I stepped into the hall, another teacher had just lined up a class of 3 year olds to go to the playground, so I just got at the end of their line and waited for them to head out. After a minute or so, the kids started turning around and finally one of them asked, “What are you doing?” I replied that I was in line to go play on the playground. You would have thought I had just uttered the funniest line in the history of comedy. They just a ... |  | |
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| | Worshiping Together | |
| By Brad Miller on9/22/2010 1:56 PM | |
| Greetings on this steamy day,
One of the challenges of worship planning and preaching is making sure that the worship and the sermon is relevant and vital to those in attendance. Does it help prepare the worshippers for the next part of their faith walk? Does it illuminate God’s presence and bring comfort? Does it challenge the worshippers to step out in faith and be witnesses for Jesus Christ? These are all the kinds of questions that must be dealt with when worship is being planned. And it’s all the more important that those questions are asked within the rubrics of long lived and long loved traditional service. The reason it’s even more important in that instance is that when a formula works, the tendency is to simply repeat that formula, and sometimes, the whole service will suddenly seem, well, formulaic.
In order to keep that from happening, many different techniques are used. One is to follow the “Common Lectionary”, an agreed upon system of rotat ... | | |
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| | Simple Things | |
| By Brad Miller on9/8/2010 1:07 PM | |
| Greetings!
This past Sunday evening about 9:00, Carol and I had been out to dinner and were walking through Centennial Olympic Park. As we passed the fountain, loudspeakers in the area announced that in a few minutes, a synchronized music and water show would begin. Kids scrambled out of the fountain and headed off to their parents and sat on the benches and walls waiting for the show to begin. We also found a place to sit. For the next 15 minutes, the music played – from classical to old time rock n’ roll – and the fountains danced and sprayed in time and intensity to the music.
As I looked around the area, I saw families with kids of all ages, staring intently at the fountain and the movement of the water. As I looked at the faces of the people gathered I saw nothing but smiles. It was not a big thing, maybe not even something they knew was going to take place. But, it was something a little out of the ordinary, something pleasant, something that brightene ... | | |
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| | Moving Forward | |
| By Brad Miller on9/2/2010 11:45 AM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful morning,
The last couple of months have been exciting times at BCC, and the excitement continues into the Fall. In July the Executive Team and Elders, along with Rev. Jennifer and I, spent time in “cluster” meetings of the church seeking to gather information and feedback about where we are and where we need to be going. It is an exercise that should take place every few years, if only to make sure we are on track to be what God would have us be here at the corner of Peachtree and Lanier. There are other good reasons, too. This congregation has changed in the last few years: young marrieds are now starting families, young families are now seeing their kids off to college, empty nesters have become retirees, and that doesn’t even take into account the many new members that have joined us. In short, this was the time to take stock.
For those of you who participated in those meetings, I know you share my excitement at the enthusiasm a ... | | |
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| | God's Love Never Quits | |
| By Brad Miller on8/26/2010 8:27 AM | |
| Greetings!
This week started with an afternoon of celebration with the International Christian Church as they installed their new pastor, Sokhom L. Chau. Any day I get to spend with my Cambodian friends is a good day, but this day was up near the top. With Sokhom’s installation, the church has taken another great step forward on their faith journey. New members have joined; their property looks better than ever; and the smiles on their faces tell the whole story: they are reveling in the blessings of God. But more than that, they are working hard to share those blessings with as many people as possible.
After the worship service, Phan Rhattanak and Phaly Huy sat with Charles Kinney and me and talked about what BCC had done for them. They talked of being inspired by the stewardship letter that went out a few years ago declaring, “Are We Crazy?” Phan said it made the folks of the ICC sit up and say, “Hey, we are crazy too!” Because of that letter, he said, ... | | |
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| | Planning Ahead | |
| By Brad Miller on8/19/2010 9:54 AM | |
| Greetings!
As we move steadily toward Fall, activities in the church start to gear up. On September 12th, we will begin our “Super Sunday” program that will run for 6 Sunday evenings. On September 24th and 25th, the Garden Club will hold their Fall “Yard Sale” (which is highlighted by some very nice furniture donated to the club specifically for this sale). On October 10th the pumpkins will arrive…and on and on.
To kick off the Fall, beginning this Sunday, August 22nd, we are undertaking a new endeavor for Adult Christian Education. Each week, in addition to the “Lectionary Class” and the Senior Adult Class, we will offer a “Special Topics” class in the newly renovated classroom (in the old church office – ask on Sunday and someone will get you there!). The classes will all meet from 9:45 to 10:30 and are designed to address one of the streams of thought that came from our recent cluster meetings. That is, a desire for spiritual development through increas ... | | |
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| | A New Start | |
| By Brad Miller on8/11/2010 8:21 AM | |
| Greetings!
As I was driving to work this morning, I passed about 50 kids waiting for school busses along my way and I was reminded that for alot of the kids in the Atlanta area, this week is the first week back in school. One friends kids in Decatur actually started last week, on August 2nd. It seems early to me, but it must really seem early to the kids! In fact, I don’t think it matters if you start on August 2nd or October 2nd: it’s still going to be early for the kids!
But still, I remember going back to school with a sense of excitement, a sense of a new beginning, and if it was a year where you changed schools, you actually had a chance to “reinvent” yourself among people who had never met you before. Sometimes that is what I miss most after spending so much of my life involved with higher education. Because the fact is, that new beginning and new excitement was just as present in my 13 years as a college faculty member as it was when I was in elementar ... | | |
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| | Connections | |
| By Brad Miller on8/11/2010 8:06 AM | |
| Greetings on this steamy day,
Today I was reminded of the importance of the connections in our lives. Too often, we don’t really think about how many ways we have been touched, and how many ways we are able to touch others. But today I was reminded again that among the greatest blessings we experience are the connections we have with so many people.
Today I spoke with an old friend. Someone who I haven’t talked to in a long time – maybe 3 years. Within minutes we got past the catching up part and it became clear that my call was well timed because he needed to talk. And while all I did was listened, our connection was a help. To both of us.
Today I had lunch with a friend that I see about 5 or 6 times a year. We were in the midst of a pleasant lunch when it dawned on me that I had something nagging at me that she was in a position to help with, because of her profession. And so I asked her professional opinion about something and, as ... | | |
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| Home | |
| By Brad Miller on7/21/2010 10:12 AM | |
| Greetings on this hot and going to get hotter day,
I have been thinking about home a lot lately. Not just the place I call “home” but the whole idea of what “home” really is. It probably started about two weeks ago when I was talking to my sister about plans for our annual family reunion at our cottage in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at the end of July. 16 of the 18 members of the family will be there, the only 2 missing will be our nephew Daniel and his wife Rachel, who are expecting their first baby in September and so can’t travel from Seattle. It is always great when we can all get together, and getting together at Munuscong makes it all the better, because that is one of the places that I definitely think of as “home.” Summers growing up my parents ran a church camp that had once been a fishing and hunting resort owned by my Great Uncle and built by my grandfather. From the 1920’s on, it has been a special place for my family. Today, no less than 8 cottages on the river b ... | | |
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| | Thankful | |
| By Brad Miller on7/15/2010 3:05 PM | |
| Greetings on this steamy day…
All week long I have been singing a song inside my head…”It is good to give thianks…it is good to give thanks to the Lord…” Those of you who were at “Praise on Peachtree” last Sunday know that the theme was gratitude and that song was one of the centerpieces of the service. As I have gone through the week, I have found myself giving thanks for so many things. Big things and small things. Mundane things and extraordinary things. Things that can bring a tear to my eye and things that can make me laugh out loud. And I find myself in a much better place when this happens.
Which brings me to the question of the hour: do I feel closer to God because I give thanks? Or is it my closeness to God that causes me to give thanks? Sort of a chicken and egg thing, really. While still wrestling with the definitive answer, I’m leaning toward to saying yes to both questions. There are just days when the sun shines and the sky is blue and the h ... | | |
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