Aaron Smith’s Blog

Five years ago I looked across our church and realized that I was the only young adult in attendance on that specific Sunday. My heart ached for the youth group, who were 30 strong and had no one to look up to. I was on my way to seminary and my influence with the youth group would be only “virtually.”

While in seminary my future ministry desire became focused on having a strong young adult group that was a solid, Christ-like influence for the youth. Now that I’m back in Bethlehem I look across the church and see that young adults are becoming the strength. We have our Young Adult Group on Friday nights at 9:00pm (S.T.E.P). We also have added a pre-youth group Addition in Awana. Such an accomplishment was a divine work of God. It makes me excited for what will happen in the future.

There are rumors going around about beautifying our church. As far as I can tell the process is in full swing and it is actually going to happen sooner than I could have ever dreamed. I can only pray for a miraculous process to ensue. Could we be one of those  churches who has a series of “coincidences” that benefit our transition? Maybe a crew of remodelers happens to drive their bus next to our church and it breaks down, so they decide to use their resources and time to give us a free remodel. Better than that; someone would invest their fortunes in us because we are a place that is going to propel the gospel message througout our city and througout the world.

While some may question whether it is right to make your place look nice just to bring in visitors, I think another question is more helpful. Should we allow our place to be ugly enough to keep people from hearing the gospel? More Importantly, the church is the place where believers can meet together to grow, encourage, build up, and then go outside of our walls to bring the gospel message to those who have never heard. It is exciting to know that we are going to have a place that will allow us to do that much more efficiently, while not falling down.

Any suggestions on landscaping? Shingles? Steeple? Siding? Painting?

It was such a joy to expound upon God’s word today. I have realized that exegetical sermons are the way to go for me. I was going to preach a topical sermon on the different ways Jesus teaches us to die; however topical sermons often make it more difficult to let the Word of God speak. For instance; I could make a decision on what I want to preach and find verses that match that lesson. When that process happens, it’s easy to find support (or to force support) for what i want to say. In an exegetical sermon the preacher must come to the Word and say, “What is this talking about?” and then ask “What is this saying about what it’s talking about?” With those questions, agonizing study, prayer, receptiveness to the Holy Spirit, Creativity, attention to the audience’s struggles, fears, and motivations, realization of my own inadequacies, realization that I’m a gift (tool, vessel, opportunity) for changed life and not responsible for changed life, that the most important teacher is the Holy Spirit, while balancing the whole message in a form conducive to adequate rhetoric. My preaching professor once said that we, as preachers, should not judge our sermons until we preach about 100-150. I am at about 20+. I feel like a high school kid batting in his first baseball game. He had several practices where no one taught him anything about how to hit a baseball. He made contact once in a while, but the night before this first game his coach taught him everything he could about batting. The day of the game the kid remembered everything he was taught, but he had to think too much to just hit for the sake of hitting. I long for the day i can preach for the sake of preaching. I am reminded of the boy who had a limited amount of bread and fish; yet Christ multiplied his limited supply for the sake of the hungry crowd. May the Lord forever bless my meager effort for the hungry listeners.

This has been a tough week. I didn’t decide on the passage until Friday night. I didn’t start on the passage until Saturday at 7:00pm. I finished my sermon outline at 1am. After that I went over to the church and diligently prayed that God would speak to us where we are at by Glorifying His son in the message. By 2:30 I was asleep. I woke up at 7:45 and started to write a transcript. I then proceeded to go over my outline. Though my time was limited this week; it was most joyous to engage in the sermon proposition; at least in part. The small time I had available this week I was able to offer up in order to preach the Word. Such an opportunity was a blessing and a privilege that I can not supply in words. Though to call such an action ‘dying to myself’ (as the Word of God taught us today) would be a mockery of the difficulty of the message today. It is the difficulty that Christ has exemplified that propels any such dying on our part.

We packed up five vans full of kids and chaperons and headed down to Ocean City Maryland for a weekend Youth Conference. With scattered, ambiguous messages from profound speakers, a musical worship group with fluffy lyrics and adequate skills, and a band that provides a frying pan of diversity which captured our kids hearts and emotions; we all left with an impact worth the $60 ticket price. The Will Smith esque speaker quickly became the hero of us all. He had a gospel presentation that was clear in the midst of all his scattered, yet hard drawing stories. Tyra, the sign lady, had a kindness and a life story that could only have been the redemption by the Sovereign God. There were some question of the integrity of the acting man who told the prodigal son story as his own, then confessed it was made up in regards to his own life. The profound Impacts happened within our own group. My revealed goal was to provide an environment from which the kids could bond into deeper relationships. My unrevealed goal was to provide an environment that was similar to home in goofiness and the use of cellphones and tvs. I wanted the kids to learn that God can show up in the midst of their regular lives and lifestyles so that when they go home, that they will learn that God is still there with them. God did indeed show up. We prayed for one another on the first night and there was an immense time of building one another up. The Holy Spirit left a rich impact on us all. It was one of two times in my life where God impacted me by showing up in a profound way when His people built one another up. Or maybe it was that when God showed up, His people built one another up. Additional Highlights included tackle football on the beach, ultimate frisbee, shopping, apples to apples, boppy ball (volleyball on beds), hearts, chess, throwing shield game, hallway soccer, drunken hallyway golf (not our group of course but some other crazy, shady people), piles of pizza, burger king and Mcdonald’s, snack bags in the car, fog and drizzle, rebuke of one of our own for wearing a “demonic sweatshirt”, a bayside sermon on the freedom of Christ, bad bathroom experiences, middle school bonding, senior send-off, giddy girls, Chris the chick magnet, midnight pranks of tying kids to their beds, piling cream in someone’s hand and tickling their face. Then we came home and had a massive hailstorm while we were just getting settled in our houses. For me, it is an attestation and reminder  that God showed up!

Some say that God never wastes a single one of our experiences but He uses every one of them to mold us, to develop our character, and to help us minister to a select people group. Others use such a view to say that they would not change a single thing from their past (whether positive or negative) becasue of what those experiences contributed to their lives. The latter view becomes dangerous when we applaud ourselves for the path we have taken because it made us our present selves. Frankly, to think of our self as the best possible scenario of the accumulation of events leading up to the present time is quite arrogant, especially if such a thought traces each of our own steps with self-applause. The fact that we are even worthy to struggle with that given sentiment of arrogance is nothing short of hilarious if we could only remember how many errant steps we have taken. To consist of anything resembling humanity given so many stumbling trips  is nothing short of a redeeming act from God. When I attempt to say that I don’t regret any decisions I ever made because of what they have attributed in my present making, every bone in my body screeches to a halt to keep me from such a disastorous act. What I can learn from all of this is that I can walk freely without fear. The walk of grace provides that the Lord has been the redeemer in my present life despite the steps I took to get here. The walk of grace provides that the Lord will contine to be my redeemer regardless of the steps I take in this life while my path slowly straightens out. The walk of grace provides that when I am done walking, my journey will be complete, my residence will be nothing but redemption. My steps will have been irrevelant to the giant leap made on my behalf.