WestonWilliams.com

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Tonight’s taping of “The Not-So-Late Show” was a huge success, there was so much energy and it seemed everyone had a great time. So many people went in to making this a huge success, but two in particular stand out to me. The first is Chris Day who single handedly designed and constructed the sets. He worked tirelessly to construct the bandstand and cityscape window. We wore him out with ideas and he went above and beyond with his service. Thank you Chris for making the sets a great setting for a great show.
Secondly, Kathie Perkinson rose to the challenge of feeding the many people who came tonight. Monday we found out that we had close to double the amount of people who normally come to meals. Kathie, however, made it happen. It was not easy, but it was done with excellence and was greatly appreciated.
It’s easy to overlook the things which are most important, meals and environment. Both of these things made tonight! Working people and busy families were able to come tonight because of the meals. And we were all transformed to a TV studio because of the excellence of the sets. Without these two vital components our program tonight would have not been half of what it was. Thank you Chris and Kathie for all your hard work - I appreciate it.

This is the title from a section of Henri Nouwen’s book, The Way of the Heart. Here Nouwen posits that when we talk, we let out the fire of the Spirit and our soul becomes cold. The imagery is that the the fire of the Spirit resides in us, warming us, moving us, and when we open our mouths that fire escapes. If we leave our mouths open long enough the fire leaves and all we are able to speak are our own confused ramblings. He then quotes James Hannay who wrote The Wisdom of the Desert back in 1904 saying, “The man who talks about his religious feelings runs a great risk of dissipating them altogether. No man has more need to ‘guard the fire within’ than the preacher whose duty forces him to be for ever giving utterance to the most sacred feelings of his heart. I conceive that this is what the hermits meant by speaking of the mouth as the door of the heart. The mouth is not a door through which any evil enters. The ears are such doors, or the eyes. The mouth is a door only for exit. What was it that they feared to let go out? What was it which someone might steal out of their hearts, as a thief takes the steed from the stable when the door is left open? It can have been nothing else than the force of religious emotion within them. Words conveyed it to listeners, perhaps; they certainly took from the store within. Thus it was that the hermits not only avoided definite sins of the tongue, not only shrank, as many others do, from specially dangerous kinds of talk, but aimed at reducing to the narrow limits of what was absolutely necessary all talk, even talk about religion, and set up as an ideal a life of almost unbroken silence.” Perhaps we should also leave the silence of our hearts unbroken more often.

This has been an interesting week in politics, particularly for the democratic party in South Carolina. It seemed that every time I tuned into CNN Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were saying, “You said that,” or “You’re misinterpreting me.” This became real old real quick until John Edwards figured out that people were tired of the bickering. He seized the moment and started each message by saying, “While the other two may be fighting, let me tell you what my campaign is about.” While I’m not going to weigh in on the candidates, I think Edwards can teach us something about being the church.
The church, it seems the non-denominational Christian Churches especially, like to bicker. We argue about this and that, air our arguments in the public until they split off of the fifth or sixth Christian church of Whereverville. Meanwhile the world, secular philosophy, or simply other churches say, “We’re not fighting, come and listen to what we’re about.”
There is a void of unity which is creating a vacuum of peace in our faith landscape across America. Perhaps we’ve lost sight of what we’re fighting for so we decided to fight ourselves! Meanwhile, people are leaving our churches and bypassing them for other alternatives. We need to stop the fighting, start proclaiming our positive message of hope and become a force of change in society. I’m not talking about some cheap political gimmick, I’m talking about reclaiming the purpose and power of God to accomplish his mission of reconciliate.

I picked up Rick O’Shay at the airport yesterday and now I’ve been officially demoted to be his personal chauffeur/assistant/secretary. I’m really excited about the Not-So-Late-Show taping here at Bowling Green Christian Church, but Rick’s a little pushy. This morning I drove him over to Christian Family Radio (90.7 FM) in town for his interview. This is a great promotion for the church and his interview was a lot of fun, you can listen to this interview on the “Cruze with Suse” by clicking on the audio player at the bottom of the post. Also, a sneak peek at something brand new to BGCC we have a website up just for the Not-So-Late-Show with Rick O’Shay and you can visit that website here: www.notsolateshowonline.com. Tonight is the taping of the pilot episode, I hope to see you all there in the studio audience!

Listen to Rick’s Interview Here!

There is a monastery in Ireland that has hosted a daily online prayer for quite some time. To some, this might come across as unnecessary or perhaps even comical, but I think that there is a great need for this. So many people live at their computer terminals from 9 to 5, and then when they come home they plug back in on their PC or Blackberry. It is this audience that I think will benefit most from this exercise. After you click on the “Prayer for Today: English” link the site takes you through several meditative prayerful thoughts, allowing you the leisure to control your pace. It brings to mind things that perhaps you’ve neglected and ways in which you can increase in your devotion. This is no substitute for being still and being holy, but perhaps this can serve as the Nicotine patch for the grossly cyber-addicted.

We have been enjoying a wonderful time resting in Florida these last two weeks. Last week was a time of great rest and family time, this week I’ve been commuting to downtown Orlando for a class from 9 to 5. This week has been an incredible time of renewal, renewing my mind and approach to ministry.

Last week I finally realized, I’m cheap – there I said it! Even though we are in the midst of the house of mouse we did not go to Disney World. If I’m going to spend big Disney dollars I want my kids to remember it and at 1 and 2 they won’t. But still, Bailey loves Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto. So, we decided to go to a night of character dining to eat dinner with the crew from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The place was packed, the food was okay and the characters were buzzing around from table to table. It seemed like an over priced Chuck-E-Cheese without the games. Eventually all the characters came by our table and Minnie particularly spent a lot of time with Bailey. Minnie even gave her a kiss! Right after Minnie left us, Bailey put out her arms twirled around and smiled with euphoric joy, laughing hysterically.

I laid her down for bed that night and she said her prayers. It started pretty rote consisting of the nightly, “Mommy, Daddy, Bailey, Bubby – Amen.” But, that night as she prayed she said, “Mommy, Daddy, Bailey, Bubby – Donald, Goofy, Mickie , Minnie, Pluto – Amen.” I was elated! What a great prayer, straight from a child’s heart.

What happened that night? Bailey who prays for the most important and meaningful things in her day always prays for her family – the constants in her life. Occasionally when grandma or grandpa visit they’ll make it into her prayers. That night characters larger than life, constants from the TV became for her companions for an evening.

Bailey obviously doesn’t understand prayer fully. She has learned that we stop and reflect before meals and bedtime. She even has learned to “pray” for herself. But, she understands that what is most important and joyful belongs in our prayers. Prayer for her is a full expression of her day – reflective and thankful.

What happened that caused our childlike, joyful, spontaneous prayers to become a chore and monotonous? Why can’t we recapture this childlike state of joy and thanksgiving? Perhaps we no longer have childlike wonder that celebrates life? Let us take the time to pause, to celebrate and to move into a newness of life captured in our prayers.