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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

Brothers and sisters,

I’ve mentioned this a few times now, but I’ve been thoroughly enjoying a fantasy book club I joined earlier this year. We meet at a bookstore in Chapel Hill once a month and we talk about the latest fantasy book the leader of the club has chosen. Five months in, I’ve enjoyed all of the books we’ve read — some definitely more than others.

Well, last Thursday, I went to chat with the other book club members about a book called City of All Seasons. It’s a very new book, having literally come out this May, that is co-written by two respected fantasy authors. The novel is set in the island city of Fairharbour and is told through the perspectives of two cousins, Jaime and Esther Pike. Sounds simple enough, until you learn that, because of tragic circumstances that happened decades earlier, the cousins have been separated since Fairharbour exists in two different, overlap-ping dimensions. Jaime’s Fairharbour is stuck in eternal winter and is governed by the oppressive Doormen. Esther’s Fairharbour is stuck in eternal summer and is terrorized by the paranoid Fenestration.

The plot of the book surrounds Jaime and Esther’s attempts to communicate with each other and unravel the mystery of what happened to split Fairharbour in two. And it’s the way they communicate that I want to write about a little bit. See, Jaime and Esther are both tinkerers who learned how to make things from their uncle, Pawel. They communicate with each other by creating new, interesting things that recall their shared childhood, slipping these to each other at places where the two Fairharbours bleed into one an-other (in other words, Jaime finds places not covered with snow and puts his object there, knowing Esther will find it, while Esther finds little patches of snow and places her creations there, knowing Jaime will find them). Their creativity, their connection, and their hope of reuniting keeps them going and does, eventually, help them figure out what happened to Fairharbour all those years ago.

What I appreciate the most about this story is the connection the authors make between creativity and hope. When we create something for someone else, we draw on our knowledge of them and we make something that we believe will bring them joy. We make something that reminds them that they are loved. And I would argue love and joy naturally lead one to hope. As Christians, isn’t our hope tied up in the idea that God loves us deeply? Is our hope not defined by the joy God gives to each of us? To be able to build connections with other people is to create com-munity and a sense that we can do great, wonderful things. If we will place God in the center of it all, we will find that creating and connecting with others connects us more fully to God.

So, over the next few weeks, I would challenge you all to create something for someone you love. Maybe it’s a craft. Maybe it’s a meal or a special dish. Maybe it’s creating a day where the two of you spend time with each other doing something you love. Regardless, think about them and their joy, and create something that sparks it.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

P. S. There is a review on the cover of City of All Seasons that calls it, “Deeply different, strange, and fascinating…” Rarely has a review so quickly encapsulated a book. City is deeply atmospheric and moody, with just enough plot to call itself a novel.