When I was a child, growing up in the church, I learned that “mission” meant something far away, over vast oceans, where people spoke languages I couldn’t understand, with traditions and practices that were strange to me. I knew that to be a missionary was a special calling and I wanted to be a part of what God was doing in those “frontier” places. To get a taste of “missionary work” I took a year off of college and worked in the Philippines, teaching and preaching.

After I began my pastoral ministry, I had a new realization! Mission was something that could happen right in my own neighborhood. There are just as many needs right here at home! Brokenness, poverty and alienation from God were all around me. God was just as much at work in my town as he was in some far-flung place. In part this was probably to justify my own sense of purpose and calling because I was not a cross-cultural missionary in the traditional sense. But I was also learning that my own context required the same cross-cultural skills.

Over the past five or six years I have witnessed God bringing these two viewpoints together in my life. I have discovered that our experiences and choices locally have implications for the whole world and that the prosperity and suffering of our whole world is felt locally. We are all connected in a web of humanity. This has always been true, of course, but in this technological age our connections are amplified. This is nowhere more evident that in economic markets. A downturn in the New York Stock Exchange immediately triggers a reaction in Europe and Japan, and vice versa. This is true in much smaller ways as well. A new word—glocal—has emerged in an effort to capture this holistic understanding of our world.

While I knew this intellectually, I began to understand more deeply when I moved to Los Angeles and witnessed the way immigrant communities connected me to the whole world. When we spent two years working on human trafficking and food security issues here in Thai Town I was deeply aware that our neighborhood and the rural communities in Thailand were intimately connected.

Today we have a chance to extend our participation in the global mission that God is doing, which is not limited only to our local church or to overseas mission, but takes them both in a different way. Today you will hear about how the relationships a few of us have with communities in a hard-hit region of Africa affects us, how we can be connected to their suffering, and participate in their relief.

—RYAN

By Scott Arany

Today’s passages from scripture (Psalm 26, Matthew 16:21-28, and Romans 12:9-21) are about living a life following Jesus, and the implications of such a life.

The Psalm speaks of a life lived with innocence and integrity. In this life we aspire to trust without wavering. Trusting without wavering is, I think, different than trusting without doubt. Often our deepest moments of trust come from engaging our doubt, worshipping with our doubt, and finding certain through those questions. To trust without wavering is, perhaps, to live with an awareness of being supported on the frame we’ve come to trust. When “evil devices” and sin blow us around, we do not waver because we are in the Lord’s path, because we are in Christ.

The gospel passage today speaks of the frame that we need for that support—the Cross of Jesus Christ. To be Christ’s followers we should deny ourselves and take up our own crosses. A cross could become a heavy weight to bear… or a cross could be the sturdy frame we lean on when weary and wavering.

Our recent missional action team wrestled with the idea of finding frames we could use to grow spiritually in Christ. Out of that conversation came several experiments around the arts, shared meals, and community. Already several new worship and “life together” experiences have come from these conversations, like our contemplative prayer time on Sabbath mornings before the main worship service. Spending time in prayer and community support us as we respond to Christ’s call to follow him, even when the path seems to lead to death.

In the Romans passage, Paul writes about many characteristics of a life following Jesus. After many different calls to action (“Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” among many others), he finally says, “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Paul is calling us in the life of faith that comes from taking up our crosses to be peacemakers.

In two weeks on September 10, we’ll do our best to be peacemakers in our city as we commemorate the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 by dialoguing peaceably with our Muslim brethren. Please come that Sabbath for “Blessed are the Peacemakers” worship.

To live our life for Christ leads to a life of peace. This may not be a calm, quiet life. This may not be a trouble-free life. After all, Christ says that if we want to save our lives we must first lose our lives. There will be difficult moments, we’ll feel like wavering, and this whole thing called Faith may feel more like a burden then salvation. In those moments, may you lean on the frame of the Cross of Christ, walking in integrity and peace.

—SCOTT

Over the past few years our congregation has been privileged to be in fellowship with members of other Christian congregations in our city as well as members of other religious groups. Through our partnerships with LA Voice and other groups, we have been enriched by walking with our brothers and sisters of various traditions. We have spoken out for justice with Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Pentecostals and so many others.

Earlier this year we had the privilege of spending several months in regular conversation with a group of Muslims from our area. This group, called Standing Together, was convened by my co-faciliator, Idriss, from the Islamic Center of Southern California, and me. About a dozen of our members chose to participate and it was a rich experience for everyone involved. Respectful questions were asked around the circle each time we met and we all shared the joys and struggles of being faithful to our religious convictions and practices.

In three weeks we have a very special opportunity—unlike anything we’ve ever done before—to welcome our friends from the Muslim community. Sabbath, September 10 will be a very special Sabbath to remember. Sabbath, after all, is about remembrance. This day we will, in particular, remember the tragedies of September 11, 2001 on its 10th anniversary. I have invited my friend, Imam Jihad Turk, to be our special guest. I will be sharing what 9/11 means after 10 years, from a Christian perspective. Imam Turk will be sharing from the Muslim perspective what he hopes this 10th anniversary means for our city and our world.

I hope you will come and join us for this momentous occasion. Invite a friend and come with your heart and mind open to hear God speak to us from a variety of sources, challenging us to be his ambassadors in our world.

We all live with expectations. Usually our greatest resentments come from expectations we have of other people that are unmet. Sometimes our expectations of others are clear, spoken and mutually understood. The worst and most destructive kind of expectations are those we have of other that we don’t articulate.

The expectations we have of ourselves can be equally constructive or destructive depending on how we relate to them. I can have some very unrealistic expectations for myself: that I’ll never make a mistake, or that I’ll always know exactly how to respond in every situation. Then, when I make a mistake or don’t respond the right way, I am deeply disappointed with myself. Other personal expectations are very healthy and help us grow. They are types of goals we have for ourselves.

I was thinking about all this recently in terms of what expectations I have for my life. What expectations do I have for my relationship with God and my experience as a Christian? Let’s ask the question another way: what do you expect will happen as a result of your spiritual and religious practices?

Yet another way to talk about this is to ask what our intentions are. What do you intend to become, as a person? Do you live your life with intention? Many days I find myself just going along trying not to fall too far behind,
or living by other people’s expectations of me. That can lead to deep frustration.

I want to ask you to think about what your intentions are relative to your spiritual and religious life. Do you intend to become a more generous person? Do you intend to become more forgiving? Do you expect that you will understand the Bible better or be able to pray to great effect?

It seems to me that if we are going to grow in our faith we need to have that intention. Spiritual maturity, like any kind of maturity, is not guaranteed and isn’t automatic. There are particular practices and commitments that lead to spiritual maturity. Why not take some time this week and ask yourself, “What kind of person do I want to become?”

—RYAN

Christianity is a unique faith. It is not merely a philosophy or a social ethic (a way of behaving in the world) though it includes both of those features. Christianity is, instead, a faith based on a person—the person of Jesus Christ—and what Jesus accomplished in history and is doing now.

Faith in Jesus does, however, entails both a growing understanding of God—a kind of philosophy, or what we would call theology—and a way of life that Jesus taught and lived. It is easy for individuals and groups to get stuck on one side of this equation or the other. Some people will spend all their time on theology trying to understand the intricacies of God. Others will tend to focus most of their energy on how their faith motivates them to behave, and whether to abstain from various activities or engage in other activities.

What I am aiming for in my personal life—and what I hope and work for in our congregation—is a mutually reinforcing embrace of both sides of this equation. In other words, how can we understand our faith more deeply, including being more well-versed in the Bible, so that we can live the life that God is calling us to live, bearing witness to His kingdom.

To that end we try to offer a range of opportunities to grow and engage through our church. For example, a new Bible Study started this Sabbath morning, which you can join anytime, called Beliefs Revisited. Over the next year this group will be exploring the basic Bible beliefs as held my Seventh-day Adventists. You are welcome to attend this class each Saturday morning at 10 a.m. Details are in the bulletin. There are also many different opportunities to engage in the community throughout the week, as God’s witnesses. Details on these opportunities are also in the bulletin and on our website.

Each of us is ultimately responsible for our own spiritual growth. Christianity always envisions this growth being done in community with others on the same journey. Nevertheless, we each must make choices to move toward our desired goal of spiritual maturity. If you want to talk to someone about your own spiritual growth and how you might focus on some aspect of your journey, please feel free to call me, email me or talk to me after service. Together we can experience the abundant life that God offers us.

One of the conversations that seems to take place perennially in our culture is whether religion is a force for good or evil. That is a long conversation but I think it’s fairly easy to see, if one is being open minded about it, that religion has been and can be a force for both good and evil. There is plenty of historical evidence on both sides. A corollary to this conversation is the question of whether, in the face of so much religious extremism, the solution is more religion or less religion. There are many voices in our western culture who would argue strongly that what the world needs is less religion – at least of the variety that impacts public life.

I would argue, as many others have, that what is needed is not less religion in public life, but more of a particular quality; a more robust expression of what Christian faith really means. When a person takes faith as a source of healing for the body and soul, but not as a guide for shaping a vision of human flourishing, the result can be what Christian theologian Miroslav Volf calls “thinned out faith.” Volf writes of thinned out faith: “faith is not allowed full sway in shaping the way Christians live, but is either employed to achieve goals set by values unrelated to faith or allowed to define goals but not the means of achieving them” (Volf, A Public Faith, 20). This kind of thinned out faith can and does result in violence and coercion. What we end up with is religious fervor in service of goals that are not congruent with the faith itself. The evidence for this is all around us.

How can we allow our Christian faith to challenge the values that we have built our life upon? How can our faith uncover areas where our vision of life is more informed by our Western, consumer-capitalist culture than our faith and where our faith is simply adding fuel to the wrong fire? This takes deep discernment and self-evaluation in prayer, careful Bible study and in community with others.

If Christians are going to authentically address one of the most damaging criticisms of the church in the modern world – and I heard it in my office this week – we need to go deeper with our discipleship. We need more faith, not less. But it needs to be robust – challenging how we actually live our lives.

I’ll never forget what one of you said to me in a Bible Study group about five years ago. We were talking about prayer and the conversation turned to the forms and frequency of prayer. Some said we should pray at regular intervals throughout the day as a way of staying connected to God and oriented toward God’s will. Others said prayer should be free from that kind of structure. We should pray when we feel like it and thereby have a more authentic encounter with God. There is an element of truth to both perspectives, as I’m sure you can see, but the comment that really struck me came from a young lady in the group. She said, “If I only prayed when I felt like it I wouldn’t pray very often.”

Regardless of whether you pray at regular times during the day, or only when you feel the impulse to pray, the important point that stays with me all these years from that comment is this: God is not fickle like the way we are fickle. Our awareness of God might in some way depend on how we feel, but God is not subject to our feelings. He is a steady, constant and faithful father; a loving and always attentive mother; and reliable and dependable friend.

In my own life I have been trying to focus on this simple truth this week. In our gospel text today we are reminding of a similiar truth about God and God’s reign. Not only is God’s way not subject to our feelings, it is not subject to our understanding either. Put another way, God is present and active in ways and in places and with people that we don’t recognize. To have a relationship with this God takes faith. It requires that we believe that God is good and loving and merciful even when all appearances are the to the contrary. Things are not always as they appear. Reality is not always as it feels.

—RYAN

We’re doing a bit of celebrating this Sabbath, and not just because it’s the 235th anniversary of our independence, throwing off the yoke of colonialism (my how things change in 235 years!) No! We have our own celebrating to do! Firstly, we reached our fund raising goal for the Crossroads at HOLLYWOOD Mural! (See the article below for more information on that).

Secondly, we hired Sydneyann Shook to be our new staff person in charge of our social justice and community service ministries (see more below). In revisiting the job description during this search process I realized that the work Nathan was doing had evolved so much from that first job description I wrote over two years ago. So I set about rewriting it.

The Hollywood Adventist Church has focused its energy in two distinct but inseparable directions: connecting people with God through Jesus and helping them put their faith into action in the world. The is the core of my passion for the church. The church is a unique place. There’s really nothing else like it in the world. There are political action committees, non-profits and foundations that are passionate about changing the world, but only the church is helping people connect to the spiritual core of their being in God and finding there that the mission God gave Jesus is now given to us by the Spirit. The deeper we go with God—the more personally we are connected to the heart of God through Jesus—the more we discover our mission.

I consider myself fortunate. I get to speak to each of you on an individual basis from time-to-time. What makes me more excited than anything else is to see how God is finding you where you are and connecting you to His life. In the process so many of you have discovered that God’s life is both “in here”—in songs of praise, Bible study and prayer—and also “out there”—in ministries of compassion and social change. I have often described this as a kind of breathing motion. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in the love and mercy and grace of God in worship and prayer, and then breathing the love of God out in the world we inhabit.

I’ve also talked about this as “weaving stories.” When we locate the intersection of God’s story as told in the Bible, our own personal life story and the story of the people we live with in the community, we have probably located the thing God wants us to invest our lives in.

So, as I have rethought this staff position I have decided to rename it, Assistant Pastor for Discipleship and Community Engagement. Syd’s role is to help all of us find ways of weaving these stories together: God’s story, our story, our community’s story. As such there are two distinct things I’ve asked her to focus on. Discipleship—that is, the ways in which our community is attending to our spiritual growth together—and Community Engagement—the way we are putting our faith into action in our neighborhood through ministries of compassion, healing and justice.

I ask you to give Syd your full support, as you have Nathan, Scott and me. Sometimes change is difficult. Sometimes you discover that God is actually answering prayers and leading each of us in the just the direction we need to go.

It’s been a week of celebrations and milestones for our family. I take that back. It’s been a month of milestones. This week we added to this list Zoe’s culmination from 5th grade (she’s moving on to middle school next year) and Sophie’s 8th birthday (yesterday). Watching our girls grow up is one of the greatest joys of parenting. There is a sense of loss for some parents, knowing that those toddler days are gone, but I most enjoy seeing them grow and mature and achieve new things in their lives, like hearing Zoe use the word “acculturation” in her culmination ceremony on Tuesday, or watching Sophie finish reading yet another book.

On Sunday, Elysabeth and I will drive the girls to Pine Springs Ranch in Idyllwild. It’s amazing to think that I went to that same summer camp some 30 years ago. I am so excited to drive them up to camp, as my dad drove my brother and me to camp so many years ago. It feels right, somehow, to be connected to a family in this way. Not just my biological family, but a church family. In the midst of our world that changes faster than we can keep up with—that discards new products within months to make room for the new—it’s comforting to participate in relationships and rituals that endure and span generations. It feels somehow human to be linked in this way.

The author of Hebrews writes,

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect (Hebrews 12:2, New Living Translation).

Or, as the Phillips translation puts it,

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

Our culture of individualism is perpetually squeezing us into its mold. We move from one new thing to the next, seeking fulfillment and happiness in shopping and experiences. Meanwhile scriptures calls us to pour our lives into others in bonds of friendship an unity that will stand the test of time. This is a serious challenge for the church and one that, with your help, our congregation will continue to navigate together. For me, driving my kids to summer camp is one small step.

Grace and peace,
—Ryan

”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them” (John 14:15-21)

This is the text I will be focusing on in worship this Sabbath. I thought you might like to see it in advance. Try reading it a few times, rolling the words around in your mind, praying through the text and formulating a few questions about it that might drive your imagination.

My experience is that Holy Spirit plays a larger role in the Hollywood Adventist Church than in any church I’ve previously been a part of. This is, of course, a good thing, but it is also troubling at times. Earlier in the gospel, John records Jesus saying to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). We can’t see the Spirit. We only witness the effects of the Spirit’s work. Even then the Spirit’s presence is most often ambiguous. Understanding where the Spirit is at work in our personal lives and our community is a skill that is aquired and honed over time with much practice. The ancients called it discernment.

God is at work among us in ways we can’t always see on the surface, but through pratices of discernment, can be acertained. God is growing us, day by day. Sometimes it is more obvious than others. Two baby dedications with Sabbath reminds us that God is still growing families – not just biologically, but spiritually. These two families remind me that God is still at work among families, leading children to know and understand God’s purposes. These two families give me hope – that families still see value in bringing their children to the church for instruction, worship and community. Parenting can and should be something the church does in partnership with parents.

Next week I have the privilege of baptizing my own daughter! I have thought about this day since I Zoe fit easily on my lap. Next week is a big day for Elysabeth and me, but it is also an important day for our church. I am reminded, as I listen to Zoe describe why she wants to get baptized and what it means to her, just how important so many of you have been in her spiritual growth.

May God’s Spirit come to us and envelope us in her presence this Sabbath as we eat and drink together and celebrate God’s life in and among us!

–Ryan