HCLM BLOG

Today I received a link to a well known Christian statement. While it may be long to read it has some great thoughts, I am providing that link.

I certainly can not disagree with the thoughts stated here. I am glad that there are those who are willing to fight the public/political battles that these issues raise. When I see the three authors of this statement at the end of the document, I can see the influence of each in the document. If we did not have people willing to fight for the rights of Christians, here and globally, I am sure that being a practicing Christian would become much more difficult.

They are absolutely right that as followers of Christ we have the God-given responsibility to teach and act as much like Christ as we can be. The Christian church has no one else to blame if we become ineffectual and irrelevant in our society except ourselves. We will lose our voice in society because we refuse to use it. From that point of view I would not hesitate to sign this statement. That being said I have these thoughts also!

Turning the tide of government, takes a vast amount of time, effort, and money. In the end it is just that "the Tide of government". We flow back and forth from one extreme to another. The conservative voice is becoming more audible because the liberal voice seems now to be in control. That will probably result in the rise of the conservative and that will again give rise to the liberal voice. In the end how many lives are changed by the national laws reflecting the public swings of sentiment? When we engage in the politics needed to raise momentum for the Christian cause, it is almost impossible to avoid what the statement refers to as "judging". The Christian employer refuses to hire a person who is living in a homosexual relationship and yet his main supervisor is known by all to be having an affair while married. Sin is sin and yet to effect change in the laws of the state, we have to make one sin worse than another. We are forced to judge.

Jesus came to change "people" that "I may KNOW HIM and knowing Him I would know the one who sent Him!" Making laws and changing laws will not change people. Jesus knew that and that is why he did not try to change the political religion of His day. He said that He came to "Save the lost". He knew that the best way to do that was to directly touch people's lives, humbly serving all of those around him, from Centurion leaders to blind beggars and lepers. I certainly do not object to those who seek to make a difference through government, but as for me I choose to use my talents, and treasure to effect change through individual people. I believe that we can change our entire society by serving one person at a time.

We will always live in a world that is influenced by the Devil and his hatred of God and everything Godly! No laws can change that. But we can influence individuals to live lives that reflect the Love of Christ.

I have more thoughts but that is probably enough for now.

In Christ,
Paul Hoyer

Pastor Zach Zehnder and his family, (Allison and Nathan) moved here to Central Florida this week. He will be working in Lake County to establish a new area for HCLM there. Zach was in the office for the first time today and a couple of us took him to lunch and we let him know that as "The New Guy" he was expected to pray for the meal.

Thinking of him as the new guy reminded me that it has been a long time since I was the "New Guy" anywhere. They are here and do not know, people, the community, or even the church. They do not have family here (feel free to have them over for dinner) and do not even know where to find the best resteraunt or the grocery store. I realized just how much the relationships that I have mean to me.

Almost everything that we do and are is determined by the relationships that we have. We can not go through life as "the new guy" we all need relationships. The people that we are close to are able to encourage us and strengthen us and sometimes even able to push us to do better. The success that I have had in my life is directly atributable to the relationships that I have. More often than we would like to admit, we succeed because of the "who we know" rather than "what we know".

The trouble is that having relationships takes time and effort. We have to be willing to put ourselves out for someone else, we have to spend time getting to know them and help them when they are in need. It is interesting that we are willing to spend time exercising, dieting, and even studying to make ourselves better but we don't have time for other people. Building and developing relationships is just as important to who we will be as any of the other things that we can do in our life.

As we begin the summer months, why not resolve to spend some of you time deepening old relationships and developing some new ones. I know that this will be time well spent.

in Christ,

Paul Hoyer

I've been reading this book by Gene Edwards called "Living by the Highest Life"; really amazing book (and my favorite Christian author, by the way) for those of you who are interested.  

Of course, the "highest life" in the book's title refers to God's life; the life that is spiritual, eternal, not created; the life that is deeper and more substantial than any other life.  But, interestingly enough, the book puts God's life on a "biological" chart--if you will--showing all other kinds of life in relation.  What does this have to do with us?  Well, the book makes a really interesting point; that many of the traits of a certain species are significant only to that species.  Example: give a $100 bill to someone and they get really excited, but give it to a dog and it will probably just sniff it or chew on it.  Buy a girlfriend diamond jewelry, and she'll cry with happiness, buy a cow diamond jewelry, and it'll just keep eating grass!  Let some of the world's top scientists in on a new equation developed for quantum mechanics, and they'll be drooling all over the place to discuss it, but talk about such things with a pigeon, and it could care less.  Some might say that the reason behind this is because animals are obviously less advanced than humans, but not so fast!

Anyone who has ever had a dog understands that they live in a totally different world than we do.  They hear things, see things, and smell things that we are completely oblivious to.  In fact, their world revolves around their acute senses--and so does the world of many other animals--in a way that we cannot even fathom.  Consequently, they may actually think of us as the stupid ones, because we lack the ability to detect natural disasters before they happen, to instantly understand volumes about friends and objects simply by their smell, etc.  This is something different; we usually think of our values and interests not translating to forms of life below our own on the "biological" chart, but we find that this also works in the reverse; that animal values and interests don't translate up to humans, either. 

So the question I want to pose is this: if there is such a huge gap between the values and interests of animal life and human life, then how different must God's values and interests be from our own.  Have you ever thought that human's obsession with science and information and material possessions and power is something that only applies to humans, and translates neither up or down on the "biological" scale.  Angels care just as much about our big houses or higher education as a cat would.

As Christians we have become a hybrid species.  We have a soul; our human life, but we also have the highest life within us; the very life force of God Himself.  When a squirrel gets up in the morning, it lives by squirrel life.  When a tree "wakes up" in the morning, it lives by tree life.  When angels "wake up" in the morning, they live by angel life.  But when Christians wake up in the morning, we can choose between two completely different sources of life!  We can live by our fallen human life, or by the eternal life, the divine life!

A word of caution, though; you can bet that many of the things that God values are quite different and sometimes downright opposite of human values.  Human life values getting all you can, God values loosing everything.  Human life values building yourself up, God values brokenness.  Human life values escaping pain and suffering at any cost, God freely gave His own life to brutal torture and a humiliating, excruciating death for those He loved; clearly He holds pain and suffering as something deeply sacred.

I love in Isaiah 55 when God puts it so simply: "My thoughts aren't your thoughts; my ways aren't your ways."  It is true, and yet through Christ's life in us, we have the opportunity for His thoughts to become our thoughts, and His ways our ways.  The true Christian life takes a lifetime of unlearning our human life and learning the rhythms of the new divine life we have been given.  Let's start now to seek Him within, to draw upon that eternal life that He has given to us.  Let us learn to live by the Highest Life.

We are now two weeks into our Summer Series of Sermons. We have titled them "PUSH" as we talk about the push of God in the lives of people that are members of Holy Cross. Each week we are highlighting a different person, this last week we spoke about Rear Admiral Alene Duerk, the first women of Flag Rank in the Navy. We told we story and looked at James 2:14-18 as we talked about how the way we live our lives can show our faith to all that see us. Michelle Bergman wrote a Biography of Alene's life which we have posted on the church website, here is an excerpt from that article:

It was during the time of her father’s illness, that Alene was first exposed to nursing.  Nurses regularly came to their home to treat her father’s progressing condition.

“The nurses who came always seemed so very nice—they were very helpful and comforting to my father.”

Despite the excellent care of nurses and doctors, Alene’s father would succumb to tuberculosis when she was only four years old—leaving Alene’s mother, a young widow at only twenty-seven years of age, with two little girls to raise all alone. 

It was an extremely difficult time.  Emma had few career skills, outside of homemaking.  So, after much prayer and consideration, she decided to move the family to her parent’s home, which was located on a farm near Holgate, Ohio.

In Christ,

Paul Hoyer

I am fresh back from an incredible, month-long experience in Israel. It was such a great blessing to experience the culture, the history, the people. A great word of thanks for Rotary that pays for the entire trip and for selecting me. It was a great trip and I am home safely with my wonderful wife...good news. (As I process the trip and my journal, for those that are interested, keep looking at the blog. I would love to share some of my experience with you).

I also found out that while I was gone, we had several students sign up for the summer mission trip to Atlanta as we rebuild homes in the area after the extensive flooding last fall. To be exact, we had 22 students sign up, a new record for us. I wasn't sure we would have that many with the National Youth Gathering this summer, an every three year event. But I'm proud of our students, they love to serve. More good news.

The bad news (sorry I didn't warn you) is that I had two adults have to back out of attending the trip which leaves us really short. If you know an adult (or two) who could benefit from a week of serving along side some great students, please let me know. We leave Saturday, June 26 and get back Saturday, July 3. 

"Can I friend you?" is a phrase that I can be pretty sure my grandmother never heard. The social network has already become a huge part of our lives even if we were sure we would never do that kind of thing. Someone asked me the other day "how many friends do you have on facebook?" I replied that I did not know for sure but not many, then I went on line and looked I have 137!!! I had no idea. But I know how it happens, I get the friend request and I think "I don't know them that well maybe not, then I see that I have some of their friends on my list and I worry that they will find out that I didn't "friend" their friend and what does it hurt to have another friend anyway?"

But I have noticed that as people get more friends on their list, their conversation hits are less and their content is less personal. I guess this is to be expected with more "friends" we have to watch what we say. One of my friends made a comment about a certain political party and had a huge backlash with the people on her list. She did not realize that not all her "friends" were in the same political party. Lesson learned. At the school we have blocked facebook (and other things). Now I realize that we will need an overall policy for conduct in the social networks. Who do we have on our lists and is that appropriate? I had 3 or 4 middle school and high school kids on my list (because they asked) and today I dropped them off, since that is probably not appropriate. Then my thought was how does that look to them? They just got dropped from their pastor's "friend list". What a dilemma!

The lesson that we all are learning is that even this very impersonal form of communication has become something that reflects on us. The comments that we make, the comments that others make on our page all of these things reflect on us as people. So as I am thinking of this, social networks are another place where the world see by what we say and do if you and I are "friends" with JESUS!

In Christ,

Paul Hoyer

Yes I know that I have not been on the blog since the first week in May, but the rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.

Thank goodness Daniel has been faithful in posting. He has great thoughts doesn't he? I have no real excuse for not blogging, but I do have to say that Jon Thomas really does do something when he is here, because when he is gone I have been extremely busy doing all kinds of things that I don't usually have to do. But he comes back this week, thank the Lord!

Today we are starting the new summer series of sermons. "PUSH" is the title of the series and it is the story of living our lives as followers of Christ in today's world. We will look at the lives of 13 of your fellow Holy Cross members. The title PUSH refers to how our Lord has to sometimes push us into the situations and opportunities to be His people in our world today.

This has caused me to consider God's Push in my life. At 55 with 30 in ministry and surrounded by the new young pastors of Holy Cross I have to admit that there is more than a small part of me that would like to simply sit back and enjoy the next ten years of ministry. In times past I have heard the older members of Holy Cross say, "I have done my part, let the young guys take over." I never quite understood that sentiment until now.

But just when we want to step back is when God pushes us forward. I can't close my eyes without getting a picture of what God wants to do among us here in Central Forida. I know that He has great things in mind and I see 7 or 8 new ministry sites in the next 10 years. Who will lead these sites? Who will pay for them? How will they all work together toward one mission and vision? Who will be the next visionary for HCLM? These are the pictures that fill my dreams! Because of the push of God they also fill me with excitement! We have a God who can and will do all of the things that we can dream and even more! With 30 years behind me, I find myself strainning at the bit to go forward into the what the next years will bring! Together He will do great things with us! Glory be to God!!!

In Christ, Paul Hoyer

Basket weaving: what's the first thing you think of when you read that?  Some kind of joke class that you take in high school for a few easy credits?  A hobby for sissies?  WRONG!

In fact, in my personal opinion, to be real man, you need to know at least the basics for basket weaving.  Why?  Well, as many of you know, one of my big hobbies is wilderness living skills which--for people who have never heard of this--is the accumulation of various skills that dramatically increase one's chances of surviving (and if need be, actually make a living) in the wilderness.  These skills include the ability to assemble temporary and semi-permanent shelters from natural materials, make fires by friction, make primitive tools from stone/bone/shell, make rope from bark/leaves/roots, reliably hunt/trap/gather food, and along with that to identify a large variety of edible plants and animals, just to name a few.

Basket weaving falls in with primitive pottery as a way to hold/transport various items without actually having to hold them in your hands, which could be a big deal when you're getting berries or acorns or small stuff like that.  Also, if you know how to basket weave, there's also a pretty darn good chance you also know how to make cordage (rope) out of various natural materials, which is many times literally a life-saving piece of gear, but I won't even get into that.  If you know the basics of basket weaving, you could make yourself a wide-brimmed hat to keep out the sun; you could make a mat to lay on; you could even create fish traps and bird nets to catch food!

So, summer's coming up, and some of us are going to have some free time on our hands.  Need something to do?  My advice; BASKET WEAVING...a real man's hobby!  Haha!

FAITH  

Now, I know, faith, like "sin" or "self-esteem" is one of those super vague words that we throw around all the time but don't really know that it means, but I had a friend one time tell me a simple story that made the meaning of this word crystal clear and really practical for me:

You're standing on one side of a bridge which stretches across a canyon to the other side.  You need to get to the other side.  Now, you can believe that the bridge is going to hold you up when you walk across it, and you can keep believing that for as long as you want, but believing alone isn't going to get you anywhere, right?  So what is faith?  In this situation, it would be walking across the bridge; simply acting on what you believe!  

That simple story totally "demystified" the idea of what faith actually is and the role it had in my life.  When you realize that faith is simply "acting on what you believe", you suddenly realize that we use faith all the time, even non-Christians.  Why do you turn the key in your car in the morning?  Some might say, "well, that's how you start the motor".  That's true, but I think everyone has, at least once, gotten in their car, turned the key, and the engine doesn't start, right?  So there is a possibility for failure; why do we keep turning the key.  We turn the key out of faith; acting on a belief that the car will start, even if we're not consciously aware of it.  There are even simpler acts of faith of which we're even less aware.  How do we know that when we walk on the sidewalk, the ground won't cave in underneath us and swallow us up?  Hey, with earthquakes and volcanic activity, it could happen and on occasion does, right?  We walk down the street because--even if it is only unconsciously--we believe that it will not cave in, so walking down the street is an act of faith!  In fact, if you think of pretty much anything we do--brushing our teeth, going to work, doing homework, going out on a date--you can ultimately trace it back to an underlying belief that is being acted upon, which makes them all acts of faith!  No matter who you are, faith defines every aspect of your life!  (I've found that it's really hard to distinguish faith from another word that we often use, which is trust)

There is one problem with all of these acts of faith that I've mentioned, however.  As we noted before, some people's cars don't start when they turn the key, though the were acting on the belief that it would.  Some people do occasionally get swallowed up by a freak earthquake while walking down the street, though--through simply walking--they were acting on an unconscious belief that they wouldn't be.  Some people brush their teeth out of the belief that if they do, they won't get cavities, but some will get cavities anyway.  Do these people not have enough faith?  Is that why what they believed would happen didn't?

By now it should be apparent that faith is more of an on/off switch rather than a continuum; you either act on a belief or you don't.  So the problem that these people have is not that they don't have enough faith, it was that these beliefs weren't worthy of the faith they put into them.  It's not how much faith you have, it's what you put your faith in that makes it great!

The good news?  "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:8.  You could paraphrase this to say, "Cars sometimes don't start, and jobs aren't always secure, but God always is."  The great thing about God is that He is always faithful.  We can always put our faith in Him without any hesitation.  It is when we put our faith in Him that it becomes great.