Welcome to MPC Connected! With our church family separated, we will be communicating with you throughout the week in a more intentional way, including emails from Max and Jeff, opportunities to serve others, and more. Enjoy!
Hi everyone,
Jeff here. I hope you are well. I'm looking forward to joining with many of you tonight and tomorrow for our day of prayer and fasting. You can read all about it here. As a reminder, here is a link to our zoom meeting, which I'll be hosting at noon tomorrow for anyone that wants to jump on and pray over some of the suggested topics. There are a lot of reasons for fasting that we laid out in yesterday's email. However, there's another that I don't think I articulated yesterday. In preparation for the time of fasting and prayer, I was reading a chapter called "Fasting and Feasting" from John Starke's new book The Possibility of Prayer. One of his points is that fasting and feasting are are connected, serving one another. About fasting, he says:
All of us keep things in our lives that dampen our hunger for God, so we never feel the deep hunger pangs of our souls. We are always full but never satisfied. Regular rhythms of fasting have a way of connecting our physical hunger to our spiritual hunger. The growl of our stomachs reminds us that we also have a growl in our souls. We can fast from all kinds of things—media, alcohol, chocolate—but there’s something about physical hunger that transforms our hearts.
Starke goes on to note that fasting reminds us that our ultimate satisfaction comes from God, not food or some other created thing. But at the same time, feasting, done in a way that gives thanks to God, can remind us of the same thing. "Fasts teach us how to be hungry; feasts teach us how to be full. Both teach us about heaven and how to be satisfied when we get there."
One of the benefits of fasting on Good Friday is that our fast is almost immediately followed up by a day set aside to joyfully feast - Easter Sunday. We don't rush past the fast to get to the feast, but we do fast, in part, in preparation to truly enjoy the feast. As Starke says, "fasting is for feasting."
The only issue (and this is another thing that Starke points out) is that the best feasts are enjoyed in good company. As a church, we've spent the last several Easter mornings gathering together before the service to enjoy a wonderful, joyful feast of food together. Then, we gather in the sanctuary for the "feast" of a joyful time of worship. We'll miss that this year, and that means that this year's "feast" might end up feeling a little bit lacking. That's okay. Enjoy what you can on Sunday and experience the longing for something more. We observe the fast, we celebrate the feast, and in all of it we give thanks for Jesus, knowing that He is with us and will never leave us or forsake us.
One more thing about fasting - we received an excellent question from a parent about how to involve our children in fasting. If you are fasting in some way, one thing I'd recommend is talking to your kids about it in an age-appropriate way and explain why you are doing it. Ask them if there is something they'd like to give up for a day - this way it is a way for them to exercise some liberty and freedom (as we are) instead of receiving it as a command that must be followed. Also, we should be sensitive to the fact that our kids are already giving up a lot right now! No matter where you land on that decision, if you do have kids, I'd encourage you to set aside time (even if it's short) throughout the day to pray with them for some of the things we are all praying for together.
Worth Reading
In what will likely be the only soccer reference you will hear from me, Andrew Wilson wrote a really helpful article about how the church is more like a marriage than a football (soccer) match - it's super encouraging and I think Wilson puts a finger on what many of us have been feeling:
The current crisis is forcing us to do things online that we have always done in person, and in the process it is raising some important ecclesiological questions. Is virtual church "real church"? Should we carry on running it after the crisis is over? Can we share Communion together, and if so, how? How should we help people respond to the gospel in a virtual service? How can we best facilitate community, and care for the vulnerable, in an exclusively online world? Questions like this have been simmering beneath the surface since the Internet made them possible, but the Coronavirus has made them everybody's problem, and produced an intriguing variety of answers.
You can read the whole thing here.
Worth Watching
I haven't watched it, but I got multiple unrelated recommendations from church members this week about "Jesus in Athens" which is available for Amazon Prime members. Here is the trailer - it looks good!
Worth Hearing
One of my favorite Easter songs is "Christ is Risen" - even though it's typically sung at Easter, I made sure it was in my (December) ordination service when I became a pastor (thanks Max for including it on Sunday, and sorry in advance if I sing too loudly) - Here is an outstanding version by a church in San Francisco.
Worth Tweeting
Worth a Laugh
If you missed March Madness as much as I did, just be thankful you didn't miss it as much as this guy, who made up an entire "One Shining Moment" in his apartment. Well done!
That’s all for now. Love you and miss you.
Jeff
Though we are separated during this unique season, we want you to know we are available. We will be doing our best to stay in touch in many ways, but if you need prayer or just need someone to talk to, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. You can always send a prayer request to Donna (mpcadminteam@gmail.com). You can also email or call Max or Jeff or any of our elders. Max's email is mbenfer@meadowcroftchurch.org and his phone # is 484-886-7726. Jeff's email is jeff@meadowcroftchurch.org and his phone number is 540-818-6215.