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Brothers and sisters,

This week’s Illuminator article is pretty straightforward — thank you! Starting on the last Saturday of June, we hosted our annual Super Saturday Adventures. For three Saturdays this summer, we reached out to kids within our community and within our church to tell them one very important message: God loves them very much. I said this on Sunday, but programs like this do not happen unless a lot of people dedicate a lot of time and effort to them. So, thank you!

As for what the kids learned, we used stories that had animals in them to help teach the children about all the various ways that God reaches out to people and loves them. On the first Saturday, they learned about Creation and how all the different animals show how much God loves us. They also learned how we can show our love for God and for the world by taking care of Creation.

On the second Saturday, they learned about Jonah and the Whale. They heard a story where someone didn’t do what God asked them to, but also a story where God still loves that person. It was a lesson for them that God is with us during tough times and will see us through those tough times. With that, they went over and met our newest family in Hope House and learned a little bit about our ministry to refugees.

And last Saturday, they learned about the birth of Jesus and how he was God in the flesh. They learned that God loves us so much, God decided to become a person and walk around with us, and how all the animals came to witness Jesus’ birth. For their final mission project, they decorated some of the Christmas boxes we will be sending to Scarlette Jasper and Olive Brand Ministries this fall and they learned about caring for other people in other places.

Each time these children came to our church, they were taught about God’s love, shown God’s love through the volunteers who came, and were given a chance to participate in our ministries here at Hope Valley. It was a wonderful opportunity made possible, again, by all of you. No matter what you did — being here the days of, planning, praying, prepping, or donating money — know that your contribution helped do the work of God’s kingdom here in Durham. Thank you!

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

Brothers and sisters,

It’s been a while since I’ve done a recap article here in the Illuminator. In the past, I’ve waited till the end of the year to write about some of the things we’ve done over the previous twelve months. We’re a little over halfway through the year, so this week, I want to remind you all of some of the things that we’ve done in the last few months.

One of our biggest projects was back in April. We participated once again in Operation Inasmuch, a week of service that seeks to live out Jesus’ observation in Matthew 25:40. We put together care packages for struggling people here in Durham. We made Thinking of You bags for members in our church who can’t come as often as they’d like. We cleaned up around our church, making the space more hospitable to everyone who comes through.
One of the projects for Operation Inasmuch was a planned trip to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC. The original volunteer day had to be rescheduled, but we still had folks go and sort food for the disadvantaged in our area. In fact, that project was so popular we have another group going in just a few days!

In May we hosted Jordan High School students as they took their AP tests, providing them a safe, quiet, consistent space to take these tests. All the teachers involved spoke highly to me about our facilities and about the church members they interacted with. It was a great way to be a good neighbor!

In June, we took a church trip to the North Carolina Museum of Art to take in the gifts and talents given to artists by God and to ask ourselves questions about our faith. And, of course, we also started our Super Saturday Adventures for the summer, providing the children in our community with a place to come and learn and fellowship with other people. They’ve learned about God’s love for them in Creation. They’ve learned about God’s love for them in difficult times. And they will continue to learn about God’s love on the 26th of this month!

We’ve done a lot over the last few months and there is even more to do in the coming months! God makes a lot of promises to us in the scriptures. One of them is that, as servants, we have a lot of work to do! But the other wonderful promise God makes is that work will be good, fulfilling, life-giving work. Let us continue to serve our God, draw closer to each other, and be a light for our neighbors!

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

Brothers and sisters,
Last week, I traveled to Washington, D.C. to answer a simple question: can a banana play baseball?

Jokes aside, last week I went to D.C. to attend a Savannah Bananas baseball game with friends. The Savannah Bananas are an exhibition baseball team that travels around the country and plays a different kind of baseball in various stadiums. Basically, they’re like the Harlem Globetrotters, but baseball. The Bananas play against other exhibition teams and place a heavy emphasis on entertainment. For example, the first out of our game was a pop-fly to left field. So, the outfielder just put his glove up and caught the ball, right? Not this guy. He caught the ball mid-backflip and did a “superhero landing”. Beyond that, there were dance numbers, a toddler race, a pitcher on stilts, and more!

But there’s one thing the Bananas emphasize above all else—the fan experience. Banana Ball (the version of baseball they play) is focused on making sure fans never get bored. There’s a two-hour time limit—no 12-hour, 24 inning games here! Bunting is outlawed (you’ll be thrown out of the game if you bunt). Walks are wacky (after ball four, every player on the team must touch the ball). And if a fan in the stands catches a foul ball, it counts as an out! The team will go into the crowd during games to celebrate with the fans and sometimes a fan will be brought out onto the field to participate in the shenanigans. But one other thing caught my attention about their love for their fans.

Scrolling through Instagram after the game, I saw a video on how to try out for the team. They emphasize four major things with the first three being pretty obvious: high-level baseball experience, entertainment ability, and social media presence. But the fourth I appreciated. In the video they say, “The name of the organization is Fans First Entertainment. That means you will never big league a kid who wants your autograph, you will always put the fans first, and you will always be a good teammate.” I mention that because I appreciate the humility the Bananas project. In less than ten years, they’ve become this phenomenon with appearances on SportsCenter, games on ESPN, and sold out stadiums all over the country (they sold out Bank of America Stadium, where the Panthers play, twice—meaning 150,000 people over two nights!). And yet, the philosophy is still, “Fans first.” We heard that a lot last Saturday—how grateful they were, how much they appreciated us being there—and it shows.

Humility is something that we Christians ought to know something about. It is a major point in our theology and our understanding of our relationship with God. We believe that we ought to be humble in the presence of the Lord, acknowledging our dependence on God for all things. We ought to be humble in the presence of other people, believing that they have some-thing to teach us, some gift to give us. We believe that we are saved because Christ himself, God in the Flesh, was willing to humble himself enough to come to earth, live among us, suffer death on a cross, and still seek redemption and reconciliation for all of us. To be Christian is to be humble. It is to think of the needs of others first and figure out what we can do to meet those needs. All of it in the service of our God, who loves us more deeply than we could ever imagine.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben