Tag: Love

God’s Call Upon the YMCA & the Church: “Hope, Holiness, and Love For All God’s People”

An encouraging reflection upon the growing presence of Christ in our world, in the YMCA, in the Church, even when it seems that things are on the way down…

What can we learn from Christians who have been living in a town that’s been on its way down for 500 years?

What can we learn from a church that is legendary for its hoping, holiness, and love for all God’s people while also enduring hardships of poverty, minority status, Imperial brutality, and religious cynicism?

What can we learn from a YMCA that invented basketball as a way to build up hope, holiness and a love for all God’s people?

What can we learn about joining Jesus in answering his prayer for unity while at the same time experiencing the spreading darkness of despair, decadence, and destruction?

I’d like to think we can still learn so much more!

Enjoy this encouraging sermon, rooted in trust that “the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.”

Waynedale UM Church / 8.21.2022 / Colossians 1:1-8 :: “Hope, Holiness and Love For All God’s People” / Click here to view sermon – Start 27:00 End 54:00 /

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.

In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.”

‭‭St. Paul to the Colossians,‬ ‭1:1-8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Prayers for Peace on the National Day of Prayer :: the YMCA, the Church, the City

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” – to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

For the 2022 National Day of Prayer, the emphasis was drawn from the encouragement of St. Paul to the church in the city of Colosse (Colossians 2:6-7).

Here is the cotext of what we wrote to the young Christian men and women who associated there in homes and the marketplace:

“My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

Colossians‬ ‭2:2-7‬ ‭NIV

Prayers for our country and community are essential, praying for our leaders and families, our churches and YMCA’s matter.

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

As you pray today, and everyday, may these words above of Saint Paul, and this prayer below of Saint Francis guide you in spirit, mind and body, for all whom Christ brings into your life:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us bear your love.
Where there is offence, pardon us as we pardon others.
Where there is discord, bring union through us.
Where there is error, may truth arise.
Where there is doubt, grant us faith.
Where there is despair, be our hope.
Where there is darkness, shine your light through us.
Where there is sadness, inspire us with joy.


O Master, let us not seek
to be consoled but rather to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying in Christ that one is raised to eternal life.

Adapted from the prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi

The following prayers and prompts are from Central Branch YMCA in downtown Fort Wayne.

Happy Easter & YMCA Ukraine

Today on this Easter Sunday, join me in praying for YMCA Ukraine, for their faithful and brave service to their neighbors as they strive to overcome evil with good.

Today April 24 is Easter Sunday for Orthodox Christians around the world – here in Fort Wayne and in Ukraine.

What’s it mean to celebrate Easter when your nation is being brutally terrorized and violently decimated by the machines of war from your next door neighbor?

When horrific deaths mar the landscape of blasted cities, where does the courage and hope come from, that faith, hope and love can endure?

Even just briefly reflecting on how my pleasant Protestant Easter Sunday went last week compared to my fellow Ukrainian Christian’s celebrating Easter today in Kiev or Mariupol… it is humbling, it is grief-full, it is maddening really that such evil exists and devours the innocent.

What can YMCA Christians do – we who are known as the resurrection people – in the face of such madness, darkness, and violence?

Our name – “little Christ’s” implies that we are marked as such because of our loyalty, imitation, and love of Jesus, in particular how he was present to the weak and vulnerable, the innocent and the guilty, those with power and those praying for deliverance.

The YMCA has within its history a record of brave women and men who responded to the call of Christ upon their life, to serve Him through the Y as peacemakers, as mentors, as friends, as advocates for the oppressed, as allied for justice.

If you haven’t done it yet, please donate to the YMCA work in Ukraine.

Donate Today!
YUSA & YMCA World Service Check In with YMCA Europe & YMCA Ukraine

If you are a Christian in the Y, consider the call that Jesus Christ is making on your life these days: what are you doing about evil in the world, what is your Y doing about despair and violence in the world, what is your Y doing about peace and truth and reconciliation in the world, what is your Y doing about war and oppression?

It’s easy to try and avoid conflict, to keep my head down, eyes averted…until trouble comes near and then we are unprepared in spirit, mind and body. It’s hard to keep caring about our neighbors and fellow YMCA’s around the world. It’s also hard to become cynical, jaded, and hard-hearted…

Today on this Easter Sunday, join me in praying for YMCA Ukraine, for their faithful and brave service to their neighbors as they strive to overcome evil with good.

Pray for the Christians of Ukraine, that as they celebrate Easter amidst rubble and refugees, amidst terror and tyrants, that the Risen One would strengthen their spirit, that their love would breathe new life into their nation.

And today, pray for your neighbors facing darkness in your own community- and be willing to say “yes” to the call Christ is making on you to be present to those in pain, to be ready to be the hands and heart of Jesus, for all who are walking in darkness yet yearn to see a great light.