It is important for families to worship together.  The God who created each and ordained marriage knew the importance of family worship.  To a woman who had miserably failed in her family life, Jesus said, “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:  For the Father seeketh such to worship Him”  (John 4:23).

The Father does not need our worship to be a better being.  One cannot improve on perfection, but the Father knew each of us needed to worship.  The old adage, “A family that prays together stays together,” is true.  One just does not find those that are truly committed and serving God in the divorce courts.

Families should worship for three major reasons:  (1) God commands it (Hebrews 10:25); (2) it helps us influence one another (Matthew 5:15); and (3) it enhances our spiritual and marital lives (Romans 12:1-2).

No family can be completely balanced when there is a major spoke left out of their wheel.  Families are to grow physically, intellectually, socially, and spiritually (Luke 2:52).  The family that does not worship is missing at least a quarter of this designed growth.

Do you want to offer a major blessing to your family?  Here is a simple yet life-changing answer:  Begin this week to worship God!  We hope to see you at worship this week.

       — Jerry Jenkins, via House to House, Heart to Heart

- Aaron Good and Leslie Mason will be married on May 31.

- Taylor Smith has graduated from Freed-Hardeman University with a B.A. in History, and minors in Computer Science and Political Science.

We welcome Isaac Myers to our family as our new minister!  Isaac lived in Charleston, WV, until he was five years old.  His family then lived in various parts of northern Virginia, settling in Stafford County when he was ten.

Isaac graduated from Ohio Valley University where he majored in Bible.  He was a member of their A Cappella Singers, even flirting with a major in music for a year or so, having always been interested in choral music and gospel quartets!  He then attended Freed-Hardeman University, earning a Masters in Ministry.

Los Angeles was his home for 3-1/2 years when he preached for the Imperial Highway church of Christ.  He returned to Virginia to manage the office for his family’s construction company, living in Fredericksburg for some time, then moving to Orange this past January.

Isaac enjoys sports — baseball, basketball, football.  He says he likes the quiet country life, mowing the grass, feeding the horses (they have three!), and just spending time outside.

Isaac is very serious about his favorite scripture, Revelation 5:12  — ask him about it!  Again, we say “Welcome”!!

         We rejoice to announce that on Sunday, May 4, we presented Isaac Myers to the congregation as our new pulpit minister and evangelist.  After many months of prayer and deliberation, we feel the Lord has led us to this decision, and we pray that He will continue to bless His church here at Rugby Avenue as we join hands to move forward in Spirit and in Truth to share His Word with the world:

    “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.  How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?  And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?  And how shall they hear without a preacher?  And how shall they preach, except they be sent?  As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”  — Romans 13-15  (KJV)

From Isaac Myers:

           I am SOOOO excited to be manning the position of Pulpit Minister for our congregation!  Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.  I have faith that the events of all of our lives have been “worked together” for this purpose of being the Lord’s ministers in the Central   Virginia community.  I look forward to working with the elders, deacons, and all of you in seeing to it that God is glorified in Charlottesville.

           The ministry of every congregation should grow from local to global.  Let’s work together to make sure that all of our local friends and family have the opportunity to hear the truth of the Gospel.  One of the groups this includes is our youth.  Remember, if we neglect them, in fifty years, there won’t be a congregation here.  We should also be concerned that those of our community with whom we are not yet acquainted also know that we care.  For example, we mustn’t forget to get to know the students, faculty, and staff of our city’s university.  We also must always be looking to expand our efforts nationally and even globally through combined efforts with other congregations, mission work, etc. 

Our elders have expressed to me that they perceive the need for more elders and deacons in our group.  My prayer is that we can all unite in the effort to choose the best men as our leaders.  This is an important process and one that I am eager to help facilitate.

I appreciate the prayerful consideration of all of the congregation’s membership along with the search committee and the elders in choosing me as your new Minister.  Let’s get to know one another and unite in glorifying God and doing the work of an evangelist.

A number of years ago a popular Mother’s Day card summed up what many adult women feel.  The cover of the card read, “Now that we have a mature, adult relationship, there’s something I’d like to tell you.”  On the inside were these words:  “You’re still the first person I think of when I fall down and go boom.”

None of us ever get beyond feeling a “need” for our mothers — the one person who has nurtured us, comforted us, and cared for us as no other person ever has or ever will.  It is only when we are mothers ourselves, however, that we tend to realize how important our own mothers were to us.  As Victoria Farnsworth has written:

Not until I became a mother did I understand how much my mother had sacrificed for me.

Not until I became a mother did I feel how hurt my mother was when I disobeyed.

Not until I became a mother did I know how proud my mother was when I achieved. 

Not until I became a mother did I realize how much my mother loves me.

Why not call your mother today and tell her how much you love her! 

               —  (from God’s Little Devotional Book for Moms)

We are sorry we will have to say goodbye to Tausha & Josh Grim this month as they have decided to move back to West Virginia.  Join us for finger foods after Bible study on May 14 (next Wednesday) to say farewell to this dear couple.

Health Concerns:   Our family:  — George Poats is at HealthSouth Rehab undergoing dialysis thrice a week; he requests prayers that his kidneys may regain their function.

Our friends:  — George Brewer Jr., a young man from the church in Waynesboro (he is engaged to Rebecca Ladd, the daughter of the preacher there):  Apparently he had a really bad infection that actually ate through his sinus bone into his brain.  He was taken from Augusta Medical Center to UVA Sunday where he had to have his skull cut open to drain the infection.  He is now out of ICU but will have to have another surgery this week probably to fix his sinuses. 

·  Jody Boland (Janice Milhoan’s great-niece) has a blood clot in a vein in her brain.

· Wayne Brown (Jim’s brother), has congestive heart failure, and needs heart surgery to replace a valve as well as a double bypass.  Wayne’s wife, Darlene, is suffering from a condition that causes bleeding from veins in her esophagus.  Wayne can’t schedule his surgery until his wife’s condition is stabilized.

· Deb Bulissa’s mom, Katie Pitz of Charlottesville, will be having cataract surgery in May;  Richard’s mom, Pat Bulissa of South Carolina, has several health issues, including Alzheimer’s.

· Angela Burnett has been staying with her mother, Janice Maynord of Tennessee, who has melanoma cancer in her lymph nodes.  She is scheduled for surgery this Friday at Vanderbilt; Angela will return to Charlottesville next week, Lord willing.

· Ruth Christian (Jeanne Kline’s mother, cancer)

· Walter Forren is battling cancer and congestive heart failure.

· Tasheda Kelly, niece of Jewel Daniel-Martin, has lymphoma.

· Jeffery Langhorn of New York (friend of Delores Mosley), shot by a stray bullet.

· Jim Lanning of Ohio (Larry’s father) still struggles with ulcerative colitis and chronic back pain.

· Larry Macomber received the last chemo treatment for his leukemia  this week, will await test results.

· Linda Roadcap (relative of Bobby Good), complications with her chemo treatments for breast cancer.

· Ina Tinsley’s sister Claudia of New York has cancer.

· Johnny Turner (Hiawatha Green’s father,  cancer)

· Ber VanderMeer (a 4-year-old boy suffering from Stage 4 Neuroblastoma).

· Ruth Wamsley (Josh Grim’s grandmother) of WV, is recovering from a radical mastectomy.

Encouragement:  Andy Arnold; Phydelma Howard; Andrea Parrish.

Expectant Mothers:  Lynette Lanning (Aug. 08); Kimberly Reeves (Sept. 13).

Armed Forces:  — Marcel Cooke (Annetta’s grandson) has gone to Iraq for another overseas tour. 

— Laura (Yacus) Chapman and her husband Brandon have both returned to Iraq.  Laura is stationed in Baghdad; this is her second and Brandon’s third tour.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

If I settle on the far side of the sea,

Even there your hand will guide me,

Your right hand will hold me fast. 

                    — Psalm 139:9-10 (NIV)

After almost a year of searching, and numerous tryouts and interveiws on May 4, 2008 Isaac Myers was hired as the minister for Rugby Avenue Church of christ. Welcome Isaac. 

I have a little exercise I do with my three daughters which I thoroughly enjoy, although I am sure by now they find it tedious enough.  I like to point out all the famous people whose fathers were (or are) ministers.  It all started when they got interested, one by one, in Jane Austen.  Now, whenever they watch a Jane Austen movie, or read a Jane Austen novel, I ask (ad nauseum) — “And what did her father do?”  “He was a preacher, Dad,” they reply.  “Yes, Jane Austen was a preacher’s kid, and so are you, and so was:  Charlotte, Emily, and Ann Brontë, and Louisa May Alcott, and Aretha Franklin, and Tina Turner, and Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Denzel Washington, and Tori Amos, and Condoleezza Rice, and Toni Braxton, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and W.C. Handy, and the McGuire Sisters, and the Pointer Sisters, and Abigail Adams, and Duke Ellington…”  Preachers’ kids have their own pressures to deal with, and so I’ve wanted to drill into their heads with my verbal trepanning the idea that being a preacher’s kid is not a bad place to start.  I usually follow that up with “And what is Jessica Simpson’s dad?”  “A YOUTH minister,” they reply.  “So,” I remind them, “let that be a lesson to you.”  I’ve never identified what that lesson might be, feeling it is sufficiently obvious.

I was thinking about one of those father-preachers mentioned above the other day.  What a strange, moody brood of children nested in the vicarage of Patrick Brontë — and he outlived them all — all six of them.  The last of his children to die was Charlotte, the author of Jane Eyre.  She had finally married, was blissfully happy and expecting her first child when she died at eight months pregnant.  In his journal, her father was at a loss to express his grief beyond writing this poignant line:

There is no greater trial for a man to bear than to have his children taken from him one by one.

Those last three words, one by one, are too much to bear.

A parent is not supposed to outlive a child.  Job lost more children, and lost them all at once in a single disaster.  Mrs. Bixby lost five sons (reputedly) — not on the same day, but in the same war.  But to lose them one by one over the course of years the way Patrick Brontë did is unimaginable.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you … Jeremiah 1:5.

All of us are God’s children first.  We belong to Him, and we are given to our parents as a gift in trust (Psalm 127:3).  And one by one we die — if we live long enough.  I am not speaking of mere physical death — which is temporary, but of spiritual death—which is eternal.  One by one we sin, and sin causes our death (Romans 3:23, 6:23).  One by one God must experience the death of a child He himself has formed, and into whom He himself has invested a soul.  Add to this the truth that as acutely as we feel the pain of separation — our capacity is finite, limited, for we are finite, limited.  God is infinite and limitless — as is His understanding of the losses He suffers daily as one by one we sin and die.

This helps me understand John 3:16, almost.  Without this understanding, that best known verse of the Bible would also be its least understood.  The mathematics of it is still far beyond my powers of reason and imagination — but being a dad, it helps me understand something of the enormity of, and the urge behind the phrase “God so loved the world…”

God gave His only begotten son, so that His human-begotten children could, one by one, be reborn and come home.

                 — Barry Bryson, via the Manassas Signal

¨ May 3 (this Saturday) — Ladies’ Day here at Rugby Avenue:  “Come Share the Lord!”  Registration begins at 9 a.m.; preregister at stf@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu.  A continental breakfast and lunch will be provided; childcare will not be provided.

¨ May 4 — Service Sunday:  Sing at Winterhaven Assisted Living facility in Pantops at 1:30.  The card ministry materials will also be available.

¨ May 4 (Sunday) — Afternoon reception to congratulate John and Kumiko Berryman on their recent wedding in Nashville, and to welcome Kumiko into our family.  Coffee and desserts will be provided.  Please understand this is not a “shower”; everyone (including you fellas!) is invited.  (If you’d like to contribute to a “money tree”, please see Robin, Cathy, Pat, or Julie.  The couple is also registered at Williams-Sonoma, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Pottery Barn, Target, & Wal-Mart.)