Hey, Cobblestone,
Here’s how Scripture describes you:
…the household of God,
which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth (1Timothy 3:15).
As members of a forever family, we are uniquely qualified to
help others whose situation is less certain. Not everybody has a forever family
to come home to. Or sometimes, what looked like forever takes a hit, and
“forever” becomes a tenuous term. Stability can be in short supply. But the
household of God has stability to spare – and share.
Every day in our Cobblestone counties – Butler, Union,
Preble, Franklin, plus slices of Dearborn, Hamilton, and Fayette – children are
displaced. For a multitude of reasons, home and hearth are out of their reach;
the adults in their lives have been unable to provide what most of us take for
granted. Other adults will have to fill the gap.
I’d like you to meet the fosters. No, that wasn’t a typo; I
meant for the “f” to be lower case. The fosters are the gap-fillers, the
parents who answer the call and do their best to make a way where there was no
way. They’re strong and steady and resourceful. And every once in a while they
could use a little break.
This past Sunday, I mentioned three initiatives I’m working
on that have to do with serving orphans and widows by visiting them in their affliction (James 1:27). I’m
about to fill you in on the first of those three. Children in the foster system
can be said to be temporarily orphaned, and we’ll do no harm to Scripture to
consider them as such, as we live out a religion
that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father (James 1:27 again). When
the opportunity presents itself, one of the best things we can do for orphans
is to support those who support them.
To that end, Cobblestone will be hosting a foster parent date
night on Friday, February 17, 2023. Parents will drop off the kids at our place
for a few hours that evening, and go on a date together. Another organization
will provide a really nice dinner and swing dancing (along with an instructor)
at a separate location in town. Our job is simple: to provide the place and a
couple dozen people to care for the kids. The kids’ job is even simpler: eat
pizza, play games, be kids.
The event takes place 12 weeks from today. In my world,
that’s an eternity. To a good planner (which I’m not) that’s not so long. I’m
hoping it’s fair notice in any case. Please, dear reader, pray to understand
what the Lord wants you to do. Yes, I know: it’s the Friday after Valentine’s
Day… that’s kinda the point. Maybe we could take our own sweethearts out on the
fourteenth, actually, or make it up to them (with interest) on the eighteenth.
Yes, please pray, and if the Lord says to do this thing, you can get more info
at info@cobblestonechurch.com.
Back in the Sixteenth Century, a guy named Martin Luther
poured heart-and-soul into getting a message out: salvation is by grace alone
through faith alone in Christ alone. He was right then and he’s right now. He
was also puzzled by the Bible letter James wrote, especially the part that
says, For as the body apart from the
spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead (2:26). Luther spent
his life fighting the bad idea that salvation could be earned through works, in
any fashion. Finally, he realized the solution to his dilemma was embedded in
the message to which he was utterly committed: God shows his grace by
implanting a faith that will only attach itself to Christ, leading saved people
into good works, which God prepared
beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). Or, if I may
(humbly) recall a statement from last week’s letter: faith is AND faith does.
This is the second installment in a four-part series titled
“Faith Does.” In the next two weeks, I’ll describe two more initiatives we’ve
been given to live out our faith… to see what faith does.
In architectural terms, it doesn’t get any more solid than
“pillar” and “buttress.” Another translation gives foundation of the truth in 1Timothy 3:15 to describe the household
of God. We get the idea our Father wants us to be convinced of our firm footing.
When I learned to build houses, I was not surprised to learn that a solid
footer/foundation was the only suitable beginning for a solid home. But I was surprised to see how floppy a
stand-alone stud wall is. No matter how rugged it looks, nailed together and
lying on the sub-floor, it’ll look more like a wet noodle as soon as you stand
it up. Tie it in on one end, sure, but the house only becomes rigid once the
perimeter is closed and some sheathing goes up on the corners. With the Foster
Fun Night, we’re basically joining together to close the perimeter, and invite
some precious souls inside to share the warmth and security for a while.
Grace and Peace (to build undisturbed),
John
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