live out loud

The Loud Family

Posted on by Betsy

I once dated a young man in college who came to my house for Thanksgiving to meet my parents. As soon as we walked in the front door I yelled, “I’M HOOOOME!” From the basement my father bellowed, “I’LL BE RIGHT UUUUP!” and my mother shouted, “I’M COMMMMING!” from a back bedroom. As my date rubbed his ears he quietly said, “Good Lord. I’m dating the Loud Family.” He married me anyway. Truth be told, my father was a wonderful baritone in a Barbershop Chorus and my Mom was a school business administrator who volunteered as the band announcer. We were a family who was trained to be heard. It is no wonder that I ended up in the pulpit.

Psalm 81 encourages us to join the Loud Family. With words like “out loud, shout, and open mouths,”we get the clear message that our response to God should be forthright and audible.

Psalm 81 was written by Asaph for a festal event, most likely the Feast of Tabernacles. This celebration commemorated God’s saving act of bringing the Hebrew nation out of slavery in Egypt. Part of remembering the wilderness journey included a reading of the Law and an invitation to renew the covenant they made to be God’s people. It was good for them to recall and renew. Can you remember a time when God lifted a burden from your shoulders? Do you give loud praise for your deliverance? It is good for us to remember and renew as well.

Psalm 81:1, 6-10
1Rejoice out loud to God, our strength!
    Shout for joy to Jacob’s God!

6 “I lifted the burden off your shoulders;
    your hands are free of the brick basket!
7 In distress you cried out, so I rescued you.
    I answered you in the secret of thunder.
    I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

The celebration included a warning. Having been tested and trained during the hard journey, God now reminded them that they were prohibited from taking on the false idols of their neighbors. So in addition to the instruction to shout out loud, they were also told to listen.

I think it must be quite a challenge for God to get our attention, given the cacophony of noise we surround ourselves with on a daily basis. Do you spend time in deliberate silence each day, just listening? It is the best way to know God.
8 Listen, my people, I’m warning you!
    If only you would listen to me, Israel.
9 There must be no foreign god among you.
    You must not bow down to any strange deity.
10 I am the Lord your God,
    who brought you up from Egypt’s land.
    Open your mouth wide—I will fill it up!

We are assured that God hears us in our loud cries for deliverance and deserves our loud proclamations of praise. And in the silence of presence, God will speak words of instruction and hope for the future. Open your mouth wide, and let God fill you with words of wonder, awe, and reverence today. Then go and shout it from the rooftop.

Get Loud by Becca Ziegler

Baby Dunes

Posted on by Betsy

Sand dunes grow. They are a complex, living infrastructure of sand, water, vegetation, and wind. Along the Outer Banks, the dunes protect the inner parts of the island from the encroaching seas. We boast of having the largest sand dune on the East Coast here in Nags Head, called Jockey’s Ridge. This massive, moving dune is so big, it has completely swallowed up a mini-golf course.

In the last few years, the Outer Banks has recently undergone extensive beach nourishment along our coastline. Erosion, seas and winds have threatened our beaches for decades, and so our towns have responded with a nourishment program that effectively extended the beach by pumping off-shore sand onto the shoreline.

The Baby Dune Planting effort began in hopes of stabilizing the protective dunes. Baby dunes are intentionally planted with vegetation such as sea oats, hearty grasses, and dense patches of dune mats that take root and hold the dune together. If the vegetation is damaged, the dune will fail, the water will breach, and roads and homes are affected.

The most threatening thing to baby dune growth is people. People ignore the “Keep Off” signs and walk over the dune rather than go a few hundred yards away to a groomed beach access. Beach goers, not wind, are the biggest threat to the stability of this fragile ecosystem.

Colossians 2 (The Message)

My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You have received Christ Jesus, the Master. Now LIVE him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start LIVING it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.

This passage talks about taking root in Christ. One of the interesting things about the dune grasses and vegetation mats is that their roots aren’t exceptionally deep, but they spread over the top of the dune and provide anchoring to the top layer of sand. Their extensive system of creeping underground stems keeps the dune intact in the winds.

Much in the same way, rooting ourselves in Christ protects our lives and keeps us intact when the winds of change begin to blow hard. In the midst of adversities, when in the blink of an eye something changes, those matted, secure roots of faith, fellowship, meditation, prayer, worship, and scripture reading can provide resistance.

A friend suddenly lost her mother last week. The death was unexpected and has caught the family terribly off guard. As she is slowly negotiating her new reality, it is her roots in Christ and the interconnected family around her that is keeping her together right now. Another friend is struggling with her spouse’s addiction. The vegetation mat of hope, help, and knowing she is not alone is keeping her strong in her storm.

I don’t know what kind of figurative or literal hurricane you are going through this morning but hear this: You are meant to just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You are meant to receive all that Christ died to give you. You are well constructed on him, and no wind of change, no matter how strong, is going to blow you over. Now do what you’ve been taught! Stay strong, stand firm, and let your living spill over into thanksgiving, even in the storm. God’s got you…and he will never let go.

Sunrise Dune by Michelle Robertson

Through Thick and Thin

Posted on by Betsy

I have never been embarrassed about my profession as an ordained clergyperson, but to be perfectly honest, there are times when I don’t need or want the scrutiny that it brings. Times when I just want to be a mom or wife without the thousands of questions that come when people find out what I do for a living.

Many years ago, my husband and I went on a cruise with our best friends. We had a great time and loved hanging out with them. They were members of my church, but never treated me differently because I was their pastor.

We got stuck on the ship for a day due to a storm, and the cruise directors quickly came up with things to do onboard to pass the time. They announced that we would be invited to play a “What’s My Line” type of game in the main theater. Contestants with hard-to-guess occupations were solicited, and our friends immediately suggested that I should try out for it.

They took me to the theater to “audition,” and sure enough, I became a contestant. My friend was sure I would win the big prize. You can probably guess the rest: I went on stage, the “expert panel” asked me a series of questions (the audience had already been informed that I was a minister) and after deliberating for a few minutes, they made their best educated guess:

“Are you a Massage Therapist?”

Yep, I won the big prize. A deck of cruise line playing cards.

1 Peter reminds us to never be reluctant to speak up and tell people why we love and serve Jesus:

1 Peter 3 (The Message)

13-18 If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.

Being a Christian puts you under a lot of scrutiny these days. People will ridicule and reject you for your beliefs. Through thick and thin, we are reminded to keep our hearts at attention and respond with the utmost courtesy about why we live the way we live. Jesus went through everything just so that we might be brought to God. We should always be ready to tell that to others.

19-22 He went and proclaimed God’s salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment because they wouldn’t listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact—saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus’ resurrection before God with a clear conscience.

Our job, then, is to live our lives out loud, with a clear conscience and a full understanding that what we say, and more importantly DO, might bring others to Christ…or not.

Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He’s standing right alongside God, and what he says goes.

Home for Dinner By Michelle Robertson