OCTOBER TUESDAYS AT THE CHAPEL IN THE BLUFFS, ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA

On Tuesday, October 4th, at 7:00 p.m., we will begin a four-week series of meetings at The Chapel at The Bluffs.

I am very grateful to our Lord and to Jimmy Kaiser, who extended the invitation, for this opportunity to preach God's Word in West Feliciana Parish. This meeting is for men and women of all denominations. We also want to encourage those who may not have any affiliation with a church to come. Only 22% of those who live in W. Feliciana are associated with a church.

Jimmy is going door to door and inviting every resident of The Bluffs (which is where he lives). Also, an email invitation is going out to every household in Bluffs. We hope that others will take similar initiatives in their neighborhoods there in the parish.

Please pray for this effort. If you live within driving distance, we would love to have you join us each Tuesday night in October.

In the Savior,

Rodney

THE PRIZE

Dear friends,

At the risk of writing what could sound like pure “Granddaddy bragging,” I have something to share that I think is worth the risk.

Yesterday – my 61st birthday – I received something very special in my email. I received a video that I watched with Bec over and over and over again. It was of my almost seven year-old grandson Jacob Myles Wood, Jr. whom we call by his middle name (my mother’s maiden name). The video was particularly captivating because our Myles has seemed to be a bit like the rest of us Wood boys (except for John Boy): We were not blessed with natural foot-speed and had to really work at running. As Myles and I have played football with the boys in his neighborhood, I have watched how hard he has tried, and I’ve seen a bit of exasperation on his face at times. But here is what happened last Saturday.

It was only his second cross country meet, and it was being held at his school – Cedar Creek in Ruston. Grandmomma Bec and I were sitting in rapt attention watching the video, as the first four boys (out of a large pack) came running all alone down the final stretch, having conquered hills, splashed back and forth across the creek, wound their way through North Louisiana hardwoods, and then at last burst into the delight of an open, flat field – the home stretch! And there was our Myles running with all of his heart while his daddy could be heard high above all other sounds cheering him on! As he crossed the finish line, he refused to allow his pace to slacken, although his face was clearly tinged with challenge-wrought redness. But as we re-played the video again and again, we could see the deepest kind of satisfaction flashing a subtle smile through his eyes and cheeks. With his shoulders back, he strode straight ahead through the roped-off lane to be greeted by the meet officials and receive his medal. He had run the mile in eight minutes and twenty seconds! I have to write this again – 8:20! I was so happy for him. If I had been looking at film on a projector, I would have probably burned the film up!

But now – here is the best thing of all. When I talked to Myles last night, he told me what Paul Harvey would have called “the rest of the story.” Myles said that after the race, he noticed a young boy who was crying. He said, "I walked over to him and asked him why he was crying. He said that he had come in last. And I told him, ‘It's ok to come in last, if you did your best and had fun.’ The boy calmed down after that."

I said to him, "Myles, that is the most important thing." "I know, Granddaddy," he replied. I thank God that, by His gracious workings, Myles does know. I pray that he will never forget what he presently understands.



Why am I taking this risk in sharing a personal story about my own grandson with you? Because my sincere hope is that the Lord will help all of us to be ALWAYS looking for the boy who is crying.
There are “boys and girls” of all ages crying all around us because of our sub-human penchant for comparing ourselves with one another and trying to derive a sense of well-being from that comparison. And where do we find ourselves? If the comparison seems to be favorable, we tend to hold our heads high in ugliness – the ugliness of arrogance, of a superiority attitude toward others. At other times, when the comparison does not seem to be favorable, we find ourselves being pressed down into feelings of inferiority, and we begin to struggle with a variety of emotions and attitudes. Some lose their quest for personal excellence because they don’t want to have to face the fact that they don’t “measure up.” Some give up altogether and quit. Others begin to fight in anger to prove to anyone who is looking that they too can be counted among the superior. Oh the sadness that comes from comparison.

Dear friends, the real prize – the only prize that counts – is one that anybody can win, if he is willing. It is the prize that you and every one of your children and grandchildren can win. It is the prize that comes to the one who is willing to run long, to run hard, and to run with ever-increasing happiness before God’s loving eyes – no matter what happens! This prize is for the runner that is focused not on being THE best but on being HIS or HER best!

Every day we must remember: “It's ok to come in last, if you did your best (your very red-faced best) and had fun.” That’s what the King wants of you!

Your friends in the Savior always,

Rod and Bec

The Mission Foundation, August 31, 2011, “A Summer of Farewells” (Wil Mills, Chester Jenkins, and John Stott – a poet, a dairyman, and a theologian – true friends)

Dear friends,

For some of you, and for me, it has been a summer of farewells. It has been a season of difficult good-byes as very dear ones have made the great crossing ahead of us. As these summer days are coming to an end, my mind (and possibly yours) is filled with thoughts of true friendship.

What is a true friend? Well, there are many things that we might say about a friend, but there is one quality that is paramount in my thoughts this afternoon: A friend is one who takes the interests, the desires, and efforts of another very seriously. As I write this letter, I am thinking about three men who extended this true friendship to me (and to many others). I pray that sharing my own experience might possibly allow you and me to swing on the porch a bit and to give thanks to our Lord for recently departed friends, some of whom we knew for many years, others for fleeting but greatly treasured times. Now for the three.




The first was Wil Mills, son of our friends Wilmer and Betsy Mills, who left us to join his Lord at the age of only forty. Wil was a “renaissance man”: He was a widely acclaimed poet, an accomplished artist, a naturalist/woodsman, farmer, sawyer (who ran his own sawmill), woodworker, weaver of white oak baskets (from trees he himself felled), gardener, baker (who baked bread in a wood-fired bread oven he had made himself), guitarist, singer/songwriter, university lecturer (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where, at his request, all of his students called him “Mr. Wil”), and theologian (holding a theological degree). With his own hands, he built his very small but extremely elegant house which was once featured in Southern Living, and along with his wife Kathryn (also a university lecturer) and children Benjamin and Phoebe Agnes, he enjoyed every God-given pleasure both inside and outside that mountain home in Sewanee, Tennessee. Wil lived out his life before God with the beautiful simplicity about which Jesus has spoken to us all. But he also accomplished his final ambition: “I want to die well.” He died with the same grace with which he lived: he enriched us all to the very end. Shortly before his death, God gave me one last visit with Wil. He marshaled all of the strength available to his cancer-ravaged body and made his way to the living room of his parent’s home on the Mills farm near Zachary, LA. Out of desire to express my gratitude for all that he had done for me and for the friendship we had shared, as I sat on the hearth beside his chair, I read two poems that he knew I had been working on during the past couple of years. To my surprise, although he could barely speak, he began offering his customary, extremely helpful words which provided both correction and affirmation – words which I gratefully gathered in, knowing these unexpected gifts would be the last. Then I thanked him and thanked him for the way that he had always taken my efforts in poetry seriously and how his responses had caused me to keep on trying. A few days later, I wrote him a letter and hand-delivered it to the mailbox at the end of the long lane leading to the Mills home. His father later told me that he read my letter to Wil because he had grown too weak to read for himself. Because Wil Mills took my interests, desires, and efforts seriously, a window remained open and then opened even more widely to a world away from which I may have otherwise shrunk from lack of confidence. Thank you, Wil.




The second was my Uncle Chester Jenkins who took an interest in me as a young boy in great need of a man who would be enthusiastic about his efforts in athletics. I realize that games are not among the most important things in life, but at that time, they were very important to a boy who was trying to find his footing without the guidance of a father. I will never forget our Sunday afternoon chats in the dairy barn. I remember one Sunday in particular when Uncle Chester referred to the Friday night football game, saying, “I saw you . . . .” My chest swelled like the figure of the player on the Heisman Trophy! Unlike most of his other nephews (one of which was one of the Chinese Bandits on the LSU 1958 National Championship team), I wasn’t “all” anything except “all out”, but that was enough for him. He got a football scholarship for me to a community college in Mississippi, but I told him that I was planning to attend Louisiana State University where I was going to “walk on” (i.e., play without scholarship) in football. He then, as always, gave his full support to my effort and expressed it meaningfully in a private conversation about which I remained unaware for many years. These football matters represent only a small part of my uncle’s kindness to me. There is of course much more that I could write. But here is how it ended. On Saturday, August 6th, I was doing a little work on the old Wood farm in Franklinton and decided to cross the creek for a visit with my dear uncle whose 87th birthday party I was very sorry to have missed just a few weeks before, and I was heavily burdened about that. As we sat at his kitchen table (with his sister), I told him how sorry I was for my mistake regarding the date of his party. The burden of my guilt began to lift as he cranked up another great round of his often-told but still very much loved stories, and we smiled and laughed until I had to leave. I did not know that this would be our last laughter together. I give thanks to my Lord for a final crossing of the creek to see my Uncle Chester, a man who took my interests, desires, and efforts seriously. I will always hear his usual parting words: “I love you, boy.” Thank you, Uncle Chester.



Birdwatching on the cliffs of Pembrokeshire, near The Hookses, John's coastal hideaway in Wales

Finally, John Stott. It all began in the spring of 1984 when John Stott was willing to engage in correspondence with a young man that he did not know (a young man who actually didn’t know a lot about him either) and to carefully consider the expressed desires of this one who had only a little formal theological training and who had never served or studied outside of certain cultural and geographical boundaries. He allowed me (although non-ordained) to participate in what was then called “the clergy school” at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (of which he was the founder and director) in May of that year. While at that nine-day conference, he invited me not only to attend the London Institute but also to be a part of his tutorial group and to spend individual time with him. (What memorable times those one-to-one breakfasts would be at his flat at 12 Weymouth. Amd most unforgettable of all -- a certain vocation-guiding evening at his little dinner table in early '85.) Soon after receiving John's gracious invitations, I finalized the arrangements to take leave of absence from my work in Ruston, LA, and my family moved to England where the lives of the five of us (Bec, the boys, and me) would be forever changed as over the next twenty-seven years we enjoyed a friendship (and in the latter years co-laborship -- Langham Partnership International) that none of us could have ever anticipated. By the way, some of you good Southerners will be wondering at how I could call him John. Well, I submitted to his desire in that matter (along with the other London Institute students), but I could never bring myself to refrain from saying, "Yes, sir," which brought a smile and an echo from him in the early days of our friendship. Last year I had my final visit with my teacher, mentor, and friend. Among the first things that he said, and with clear disappointment, was “I thought Becky would be with you.” After we talked for a while, he said, ‘Rod, who could have expected all those years ago that we would have enjoyed the friendship that we have had.” Before leaving I asked if I might read a passage of Scripture, and he asked me to choose a text. My mind raced for a choice. I suggested chapter one of Ephesians. I felt a happy relief when, with delight in his voice, he pointed out to me that this was the theme passage for the Third Lausanne Conference to be held later that year in Cape Town, South Africa. When I finished the reading, he asked that I lead us in prayer. After praying I thanked him for all that he had done for me and for our family, and I told him that I loved him. This year, soon after his 90th birthday, I wrote what I knew would be my final letter to him. In view of his extreme frailty, I used only a few words, but I tried to pack in every expression of gratitude that I possibly could, trying to recap twenty-seven years of blessed friendship. I am so glad I wrote that letter. Long ago God introduced our family to a true friend – one who took the interests, desires, and efforts of all five of us very seriously. Thank you, my brother John.

Who are the men and women who have been your true friends? More importantly, how will you and I be true friends to the many, many people all around us who are waiting for someone to take their interests, desires, and efforts seriously? I hope you will stop to pray and ask God to open your eyes to see them and to expend the energy that is necessary to be their true friend.

One other thing – I hope you don’t miss your final letter or your final crossing of the creek (which by our Lord’s grace I didn’t with these three). Lift your pen. Place a call. Take a Sunday afternoon drive.

I give thanks to God for each of you. Go well, dear friends.

In the Savior,


Rod (for Bec and me)

Hope in the Midst of Grief

Dear friends,

In recent days, Bec and I have walked with a number of friends in the sorrow that dying and death brings to our hearts.  This prompted me to preach today at The Gathering from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 on "Our Great Hope in the Midst of Grief."  As I sit here in my study, I am feeling that I should send a few of those thoughts to you. 

If you peruse Paul’s entire letter to the Thessalonians, you will see that he had instructed them about the second coming, and they were indeed eagerly waiting for Jesus.    But they seemed to lack understanding about what would happen to their departed loved ones who had died in Christ.  So Paul gives them words of instruction and encouragement.  From Paul’s teaching we learn some very reassuring things.

Our grieving is legitimate and can even be godly.    Notice that Paul does not tell the Thessalonians that they should not be experiencing deep bereavement.  He is only saying that their grieving should not be like those who don’t have hope.  Sometimes some of you may feel guilty about your sadness:  you almost want to fuss at yourself, and say, “Cheer up!  Where is your faith?”  But, brothers and sisters, bereavement can be a very godly emotion.  In Acts 8:2 we read about the funeral of Stephen, who had been stoned to death for his faith.  It says, “Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.”  How loudly must those men have wailed in their grief!  And in Philippians 2:27, Paul reveals his own personal experience.  He says that his close friend Epaphroditus became ill and almost died.  Paul says, “But God had mercy on him, and . . . me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.”

The agony of death:  it is the pain of parting.  It is the same pain that brought tears to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 when they told Paul goodbye for the last time.  It says, “What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again.” 

Dear friends, it hurts to say “goodbye,” and our Lord understands that.  John 11:35 tells us that Jesus wept with Mary, Martha, and other family members and friends as they were weeping over the death of their dear Lazarus. 

God knows that we grieve deeply because we have loved deeply.  We long for our loved ones.  C. S. Lewis says, “The pain now is part of the happiness then.” 

Mourn deeply, my friends.  But mourn with hope – the hope of our Savior’s return!

Jesus our King “will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.”  At the sound of Jesus’ voice (John 5:29), our loved ones will rise from their graves!  Then we who “are still alive and are left” will suddenly be “caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air!”

When Paul says we will “meet the Lord”, he is using a Greek term that described “a grand reception in which the leading citizens of a city would go out to meet a visiting dignitary and escort him back on his final stage of his journey.”  (F. F. Bruce)  What a glorious meeting that will be, as we and all of our freshly awakened loved ones gather in the sky with our King.  Paul says, “And so we will be with the Lord forever.” 

Billy Graham once said that every morning his first words are “Lord, could it be today that you are coming?”  How I wish it would be today! 

Weeping and waiting with you,

Rodney  

Transcendence - The Great Hunger of Our Hearts

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Dear friends,

About twenty-seven years ago in London, I heard John Stott speaking about the three quests of modern man: transcendence, significance, and community. During the past few weeks, these hungers of the human heart have been the subject of my teaching at the Louisiana State Capitol and at The Gathering of Men as well as at a men’s conference at Trinity Bible Church in Lafayette. I would like to share a few thoughts about the first of these – transcendence.

Transcendence is that which is beyond – beyond the universe, beyond time and space. Every man knows that there is something beyond this world, that there must be more than that which we can see around us. We’ve always felt some kind of pull to that which is above the clouds and beyond the stars. Our souls have longed for connection to the Unseen. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “God has put eternity in their hearts.”

But Paul says in Romans 1:18-19 that apart from a work of God’s grace, we humans “suppress” what God has put in our hearts. Paul says “that which is known about God is evident within them; for God has made it evident to them.” He goes on to explain in verse 20 that “since the creation of the world” God’s “eternal power and divine nature” have been “clearly seen.” He says that all men “are without excuse.” Every man knows that God exists, and yet, Paul says, “There is none who seeks for God” (Romans 3:11b).

So what happens? God seeks men. He graciously works in their hearts, awakening a desire within us to pursue Him. It is then that, as Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.” By His grace, our souls are blessed with a restlessness to discover the Transcendent One.

John Stott says that man’s quest for transcendence presents “a great challenge to the quality of our Christian worship. Does it offer people what they are instinctively looking for, which is transcendence, the reality of God? Human beings are spiritual beings, seeking for something transcendent, sacred, beyond our earthly limitations. In Christ there is a connection with the transcendent God, most acutely in the Word preached and Holy Communion of worship.”

When you (and your children and grandchildren) walk into your place of worship, and the pastor presents the invocation (the humble request for the manifestation of God’s presence), is your heart stirred to say, “God is here. The One from beyond is among us!”? Dear friends, this was the experience of the first Christ-followers as they gathered to worship in Jerusalem. Dr. Luke says, “And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe” (Acts 2:43). And in his comments on the primacy of prophesy, Paul speaks of the impact on the unbeliever who is “convicted” and “called to account” and “will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you” (1 Corinthians 14:24-25).

Why will you gather with other believers this Sunday? What are you expecting to happen? Are you expecting the Transcendent One Whom you love to be “among you”? The Apostle Peter speaks of our love and of our rejoicing before Him: “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). When you assemble on the Lord’s Day, are you anticipating that as you listen to the preaching of Holy Scripture, you will hear the Voice of God Himself? And as you come to the Holy Table, is your heart filled with anticipation of the moment when you behold and eat God’s “visible words” (as Augustine and later Calvin called them)? Do you and I enter the doors of our sanctuaries expecting an encounter with the Transcendent Holy Trinity? “Holy Spirit, please help us to experience this joy!”

In the Savior,


Rod and Bec

Pray for Legislators / Draw Near to the Savior this Easter

Dear friends,

The extraordinary session of the Louisiana Legislature ended last Wednesday, April 13th, and the regular session will begin next Monday, April 25th. In 1 Timothy 2:1-2, we hear Paul saying to Timothy, “First of all, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness.”

I hope these words of Paul will move you to pray for our legislators. I would like to make a few suggestions for your consideration regarding your prayers for those who serve in the House of Representatives and the Senate (and others in governmental leadership here in Louisiana or in your state or country):

1. Morning and/or Evening Prayers: Include those in government in your personal morning prayers and/or in your evening prayers with your spouse.

2. Mealtime Prayers: Pray and give thanks for the legislators that represent you by name at mealtime prayers. This will allow your children to participate in this important intercessory ministry.

3. Prayers in Worship on Sunday Mornings: Ask your pastor to include our legislators in the corporate prayers of the church on Sunday mornings. This might be a simple one-line request for certain blessings from the Lord, e.g., wisdom, courage, and strength.

4. Letters to Leaders: Write to your senators and representatives and let them know that you are praying for them. Your children could be involved in this correspondence. The contact information can be obtained from the following websites:

http://senate.legis.state.la.us/Senators/offices.asp
http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Reps/H_Reps_FullInfo.asp

I would suggest that you not send an email. I think it would be far better to send your letter by regular mail.

These are just a few suggestions that easily come to mind. You may have other ways of increasing your involvement in praying for these men and women who serve us. By the way, those representatives and senators who attend our weekly breakfast do pray for you. They share prayer requests each week for those who have special need of prayer. They also pray for God’s guidance in their service at the Capitol on your behalf. It is my joy this afternoon to let you know of their prayers for you and to seek to stir your hearts to more prayer for them.

Tonight Christians all over the world will be giving special remembrance to our Lord’s agony in Gethsemane where He prayed and contemplated the terrors of His sacrificial death for you. Tomorrow men, women, and children will come together in great cathedrals and in tiny chapels to be still and solemnly meditate on our Savior’s crucifixion. Then we will wait . . . until daybreak on the Lord’s Day to declare with joyful hearts that He is risen! I pray, as I close, that in every hour between now and Sunday morning, your heart and mine will be drawn nearer to the One who loved us so much – so very much.

In the Savior,

Rod (for Bec and me)