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Brothers and sisters,

As I’m writing this article, we are just ten days away from our church’s annual Fall Festival on Saturday, October 26th from 4:30-6:30 pm! This year promises to be another wonderful opportunity to reach out to our neighborhood and remind them how much God loves them and how deeply we love them too.

This year, we are going to have several different areas for local children and parents to engage with. We will have our usual area for Trunk-or-Treat, with church members decorating the trunks of their cars and passing out candy to children. Trunks are always fun to do be-cause you get to interact with the kids and parents as they are coming through. And man do kids love to show off their costumes! In addition to that, we will be having our usual Best Trunk competition, as voted on by our guests—so if you sign up, be sure to bring your A game!

In addition to the trunks, we will have an area dedicated specifically to crafts. Frances Smith has a bunch of unique fall-related crafts for the kids to make, with all of them reminding the kids that God loves them very much and/or that we have so much to be thankful for! There will also be small pumpkins for the kids to decorate using markers if they’d like to!
Beyond that, we are going to have several carnival-style games set up for kids to play—ring toss, mini putt-putt, and more! Kids will win tickets that they can then bring over to our Prize Table and trade in for all kinds of prizes (or even more candy). The prize table can get hectic, but it can be fun to haggle with a kid, i.e., “Ok. You’ve got 12 tickets left. Let’s think about our options here.” Here again, you get to interact with the kids and see their personalities shine.

Finally, we are providing a meal for anyone who comes through. It’s a simple meal, but so many parents told us last year that it was perfect. They were able to come out, have a good time with their family, and not have to worry about supper that night. And after every-thing was said and done, several volunteers told me last year, “It was nice to work really hard together and then end the night sharing a meal as a church family.”

For all these things, we need volunteers. We need folks to decorate their trunks. We need folks to help Frances with crafts. We need folks to run games and work the prize table. If you can help that night, please sign up on the Volunteer Sign-Up Sheet in the vestibule this Sunday, October 20th. If you’re not going to be here this Sunday, but you would like to volunteer at Fall Festival, shoot me an email ([email protected]) and let me know. If there’s a specific area you’d like to help in, let me know.

In my mind, events like this one are important for two main reasons. The first is simply to remind the community of our presence and of our love for them. The second is something C. S. Lewis alludes to throughout his Narnia series—that God is always looking for moments to celebrate. The church, then, is called to be an institution that is looking for any reason to be joyful. Events like Fall Festival are moments like that. In a world of constant worry and tension, we can be a place that says, “Come away from all that and spend some time with us, celebrating!”

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

Brothers and sisters,
I’m excited about our upcoming sermon series. I love this time of the year. College football is back. The State Fair is coming up. Our church’s Fall Festival is quickly approaching. And, of course, we end the month with Halloween, one of my favorite holidays of the year. In the spirit of Halloween and all the interesting ideas it raises, I thought we could do a sermon series on a few passages within the scriptures that are not your typical passages.

You all know that I value and appreciate the lectionary—the three-year cycle of scripture passages that most preachers preach from and/or draw Calls to Worship from—but the lectionary definitely has some blind spots. In particular, the lectionary does not typically pick up on passages that are a little, shall we say, spookier. It tends to avoid passages where ghosts or demons or witches are mentioned. While I understand why it does this—these are not always the easiest pas-sages to preach on—I think that we miss out on some really interesting lessons when we avoid those stories.

I want to take the month of October to talk about four passages where something supernatural happens. I want to take a look at the ways in which the people respond to the crazy things they’re seeing. And I want to look at how God is found in each of those moments. So, we’ll start with a classic—Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. We’ll move on to the story that gives us the phrase “the writing’s on the wall.” We’ll also spend a Sunday talking about some wannabe exorcists in the book of Acts. And the Sunday before Halloween, we’ll take a look at Saul and the witch of Endor.

I’m excited for this series because these passages have the ability to push us in ways we may not necessarily be used to. They will ask us hard questions about what our faith should look like and how we should express it. They will ask us how deeply we truly believe. But this series will end on November 3rd with a familiar passage from the Gospel that reminds us that in everything, spooky or not, God is with us. Happy Spooky Season, y’all!

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

P.S. When I told the church council about this series months ago, I prefaced the discussion by saying, “I think y’all know this already, but I love Halloween.” I’d barely gotten the sentence out of my mouth before someone on the council chuckled and said, “We know.” When I paused to look at them, they said, “I mean, you went to Salem the weekend before Halloween. Who does that unless they love Halloween!” And, you know, they weren’t wrong!

Brothers and sisters,

In some ways, I feel like I write some version of this same article at least once a year. Regardless, I’m going to write it again. Two weekends ago, I rode down to Goldsboro to see my dad and my brother. Dad and I had bought tickets to one of the last home games for the Down East Wood Ducks, the minor league baseball team in nearby Kinston, for Friday night.

Because the weather was so nice, Dad and I decided to take his convertible, put the top down, and drive to Kinston using backroads, meaning we drove by lots and lots of fields. Now, they may not seem like much to look at—after all, a field is just flat ground—but to someone born and raised in Eastern NC, the fields were beautiful. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but deep greens and vibrant yellows. The trees lining the backroads to Kinston frame everything so perfectly that you get these picturesque scenes of fields and farmhouses and barns and sky. It’s wonderful!

I say all that not just to convince you to go for a drive sometime when it’s pretty out, but just to remind you that there is such beauty in God’s creation that is all around us. This is the time of year to go eat supper on the porch. It’s the time to pack a picnic and have lunch in Duke Gardens. One of my favorites—and it will only get better as the leaves turn—is UNC’s campus, particularly the Arboretum and the quad between Franklin Street and the Old Well.

Days like these are reminders, to me at least, of the special care that God took in making the earth. It is a place that can provide us with such tender beauty. It is a place where we can feel at peace, knowing that we belong here. God’s creation can speak to us in ways that can be familiar, but can also stir something deep within our souls. The fields of Eastern NC are not just pretty; they connect me to a place that feels like home, to a God that deeply loves me and all of Creation.

So, again, I feel like I write this article a lot, but go have supper on the porch tonight or go for a walk around the neighborhood and breathe in God’s love and creativity.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

Brothers and sisters,

In a little over a week, we will be having another Deacon Ordination service here at Hope Valley Baptist Church. Marie Bush was elected as one of our new members on the diaconate — her first time serving! Because of that, we get to come alongside her as her brothers and sisters in Christ and affirm the call God has placed on her.

The office of deacon can be traced back to various passages within the scriptures. Within the Old Testament, an argument can be made that the judges Moses appointed to help him settle disputes were similar to deacons. Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, saw how Moses was exhausting himself in his efforts to help the people. He gave Moses great advice, telling him that if he continued this way, he would wear out himself and the people. He told Moses to appoint good honest folks to help him care for God’s people. Moses did that and the judges came alongside him and helped him. In the same way, deacons are called to come alongside the pastor of their church and help him/her care for the people God has entrusted to them.

In the New Testament, you can read about some of the earliest deacons within the church in Acts 6:1-6. There was a dispute within the early church about whose widows were being cared for and whose weren’t. The twelve apostles then called the church together and appointed seven people “full of the Spirit and of wisdom” to care for the widows. Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus were chosen. The twelve apostles prayed over them and laid their hands on them. The first deacons had been ordained!

Paul also constantly lists deacons that helped him throughout his own ministry, with one of the most famous deacons mentioned being Phoebe in Rome. Paul says of her, “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchrae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well” (Romans 16:1-2). Paul understood that the work of God’s kingdom is never limited to one person. It takes a community of people to serve the Lord.

On September 15th, we will come together as a community to honor the work that Marie has been called to. We will pray over her and lay hands on her, the same way the apostles did in Acts. She will serve alongside myself and the other deacons as we do our best to care for the people here at Hope Valley. And she will contribute to the work of God’s kingdom here on earth.

I’m looking forward to the 15th!

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben