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| I Am Thankful | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on11/25/2009 12:23 PM | |
| Greetings!
On this day before Thanksgiving, there is plenty to be thankful for. Among them:
The doctors have decided that what caused Jim Mowrey’s episode Monday evening was an inner ear viral infection. This is great news since with medication it should be cleared up very quickly. Jim and Judy thank you for the many thoughts and prayers that came their way.
Alex Smith continues to make steady progress. He is recognizing friends and family, talking, eating on his own, walking some distance with no assistance, remembering events when showed photographs and becoming more and more himself. He still has a long way to go, is still sleeping a lot (which the doctors say is completely normal) and will undergo some extensive evaluation and therapy, but the news is good!
Good lives, long lived: this past week one of my mother’s cousins, Helen Butz, died at 95 years old, having lived a life full of love and family. Yesterda ... |  | |
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| | Sunday November 22, 2009 "Alpha and Omega" Revelation 1:4b-8 | Brad's Blog Brad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on11/23/2009 4:07 PM | |
| Today is Thanksgiving Sunday and one of the things that I am most thankful for is the opportunity to be here at Brookhaven in ministry with each and every one of you. And I want to make that clear: we are in ministry together. That means we face the tough times together and celebrate the good times together. We welcome new babies and new friends into this fellowship together and we say goodbye to old friends together. We join together in prayer to strengthen not only ourselves, but also all those who we know need God’s presence. We learn together. We laugh together. We cry together. We live our lives dedicated to spreading God’s word and doing God’s will, together.
So, together we gather to give thanks. And it starts with a simple question: what are we thankful for? I know some of the things I am thankful for: I am thankful that I grew up with loving parents and an active and vital church and neighborhood family. They have all had a hand in helping to shape who I am, and for ... | | |
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| | Give Thanks | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on11/18/2009 10:03 AM | |
| Greetings on this gloomy day,
Next week we celebrate my favorite holiday of the year: Thanksgiving. It’s not technically a religious holiday, but it probably should be. I love everything about Thanksgiving, the warmth and smell of the kitchen as amazing food is being cooked; the even more amazing tastes when we sat down at the table together; laying on the couches, chairs and floor in the living room after dinner to see how badly the Lions would lose in their annual Thanksgiving beatdown. (Okay, that’s not fair: there was a time when they actually had a chance to win on Thanksgiving Day…1963 comes to mind.) Depending on the weather, the later afternoon would either be taken up with a game of touch football or a snowball fight, either was okay. And then of course, the evening brought another round of food – is there anything better in the world than Thanksgiving leftovers?
But the biggest thing about Thanksgiving is that it is shared with people we care about ... | | |
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| | Sunday November 15, 2009 "Becoming Hannah" 1 Samuel 2: 1-10 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on11/17/2009 9:23 AM | |
| The scripture this morning is 1 Samuel 2: 1-10, but we need some context before we get there.
Here’s how I remember the story:
There was a woman named Hannah who was married to a man name Elkanah. But Hannah wasn’t Elkahnah’s only wife. He had another wife named Peninnah. Here is what distinguished Hannah from Peninnah. First, Peninnah had children, while Hannah had none. Second, Peninnah was not a very nice woman – taunting and ridiculing Hannah whenever possible – all because Hannah had no children. Somehow, in Penninah’s mind, that made her better than Hannah. And apparently, Hannah thought so, too. She let Penninah’s ridicule and provocation get to her, and so she became depressed and spent a large amount of time, weeping for her affliction.
The third thing that distiniguished Hannah from Peninnah, is that their shared husband, Elkanah, loved Hannah best. Whenever they ate the meal following the sacrificial ceremony of blessing ... | | |
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| | Thank You to Our Veterans | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on11/17/2009 9:21 AM | |
| Greetings on this blustery day,
91 years ago, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, World War I ended. The Armistice that was signed between Germany and the Allied forces designated November 11, 1918 at 11:00 p.m. as the end of hostilities in a war that began in 1914. This war engulfed all of Europe and included combatants from all over the world, including the United States. In the four years of “The Great War”, over 30 million military personnel were either killed, wounded or missing in action. It was designated “The War to End All Wars.” Sadly, that designation has proven not to be true.
In the wake of the peace in Europe, President Wilson declared November 11th an official federal holiday: “Armistice Day”. President Wilson declared the holiday to help us remember those who fought for freedom, and to pledge to move forward so that no one might be called into such sacrificial service again. In the following decades, Americans became involve ... | | |
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| | Sunday November 8, 2009 "Perfected for All Time" | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on11/10/2009 1:45 PM | |
| All Saints Day is a bittersweet celebration.
Bitter because we recognize that so many people we have loved and still love, are no longer with us. People who shared some part of our journey. People who helped us. People who set the standard for how we are to act. People who introduced us to God and helped sustain us in our faith walk. People who shaped and guided and admonished and praised and disciplined and simply, loved us.
These are the people who are never far from our thoughts. People who we want to share things with, even if they have been gone a long time. I bet some of you have had this experience: something good has happened – a promotion at work, a special recognition for a child, the sun is shining beautifully – and you reach for the phone to call someone to share it with when you suddenly realize that they are no longer here. My mother has been gone over 11 years and my father has been gone almost 4 years, and a week hardly goes by where I ... | | |
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| | Beauty, eh? | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on11/3/2009 2:41 PM | |
| Greetings on this GORGEOUS day!
First, a note of pastoral advice and care: if you are inside and you don’t have to be…GET OUTSIDE NOW! Turn this computer off and go…I’m not kidding!
Okay, now that’s behind me….a dear friend of mine, whom I will call “Sparky” (mainly because that is what I call her – and she calls me “Skippy” – go figure) has started a “Facebook” exercise for her friends. It seems that when she was in college she used to hang out in a bar called “The White Horse.” (I know, I know, it’s hard to believe that a friend of mine would hang out in bars, but you know, my positive influence only goes so far…). Anyway, one of the things that Sparky and her friends used to do at the bar was write questions on napkins and put them in a basket and then pull them out one at a time and all give answers to the questions. Funny questions, thoughtful questions, light questions, and some seriously deep questions. All these many, many, many years later, she ... | | |
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| | Sunday October 25, 2009 "Extravagant Generosity" 1 Timothy 6:18-19 | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on11/2/2009 1:59 PM | |
| Many of you saw the title of this sermon in the Midweek Missive, or on the sign out front and said to yourself, “It’s time for the annual Stewardship sermon.” And you are right. But, we need to take some time to remember that there is a difference between stewardship and our annual pledge campaign to underwrite our budget.
As a congregation, we must be mindful of the fact that we are called into a certain kind of ministry and that ministry needs all of our financial participation if we are to carry it out. You will hear more about this as the weeks go on. Each of us needs to take the time to prayerfully consider how we can financially support the ministries of Brookhaven Christian Church so that we can continue to do the work that God has given us here at the corner of Peachtree and Lanier. It is important work and so requires important and meaningful prayer and thought. It requires each of us to ask what we have been given, how we can best use what we have been given, and how ... | | |
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| | This is the day... | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on10/21/2009 4:34 PM | |
| Greetings!
I woke up this morning with a song in my head. When I got out of bed and looked out the window, I have to admit that my mood did not fit the song that was running through my head. Once again, I woke up to a drippy, drizzly, overcast, dreary morning. Yet the song kept playing:
“This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made….I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it…” Bah Humbug!
The streets were no better. People unsure how to drive in the rain are still a mystery to me. The trick is slow down – not speed up! Traffic lights were out. A tree was sticking into one road. An accident made me go a different route. Still, the song kept playing: “This is the day that that the Lord has made…I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Oh pipe down, would ya’?!
As I grew closer to the church, the rain picked up. No longer was it a slight drizzle, but a downpour was beginning…and just as I was going ... | | |
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| | Sunday October 18, 2009 "Risky Business" Luke 4:18-19 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on10/21/2009 4:29 PM | |
| This faith stuff is very definitely risky business.
Look at our messiah if you have any doubts about that. Fully divine, fully human, he walked among the people of Israel and Palestine and taught and lived and ministered and preached. Then he died because of what he had dared to say and do.
The example of Jesus is one that we must take to heart if we are to understand the notion of risk taking, because his life and death are the very definition of risk taking. Stepping out in faith to do God’s will and to serve God’s people. Moving beyond one’s comfortable existence and putting one’s very life at risk.
Jesus’ ministry in it’s broadest sense was a ministry of service. Service to all of humanity by providing a link to a relationship with God. Service to those sick and suffering he met along the way by providing healing. Service to those who were the outsiders by providing hope. It is the hallmark of his ministry and as the church ... | | |
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