Remembering Alyssa Lewis

   One of my professors in seminary once said something to the effect of, “You should be so involved in your church that if something were ever to happen to you the church would feel the absence of your presence.” He encouraged the congregation to be more than a Sunday worshipper. He encouraged them to build relationships, to serve the community, to make an impact with their gifts, talents and services. I’ll never forget those words because since that day I have preached them myself. I have encouraged students to be more than a Sunday worshipper but to be a person who serves the church with their whole heart and to leave a lasting impact in their communities.
   I share this story because this is the kind of person that Alyssa was. She served the communities she was in with her whole heart. She poured herself into everything that she did and now that she is no longer physically present every community that was graced by her presence feels the deep void of her absence. She embodied the words of my seminary professor.
   I’ll never forget about how I first heard about Alyssa. She was an active participant in our freshmen ministry but she barely came to Wesley on Tuesday nights, come to find out it was because of a scheduling conflict. It seems as though everyone kept coming up to me to tell me “Have you met Alyssa?” Our leaders and her colleagues would come up to me and tell me, “You have to put her on leadership. And you have to put her on outreach. She is willing to talk to anyone and she has a huge gift for inviting people to church.” I remember she came to Wesley one Tuesday before we had our leadership applications and I told her that in order for her to be on leadership she had to attend Tuesday night for the rest of the semester consistently. That was the Spring of 2016. She agreed and respected our requirements and I promise you that ever since that day, she never missed a Wesley service.
   She attended our freshmen mission trip to New Orleans, on which I drove the 15 passenger bus for the 30 hour drive round-trip. She sat next to me for at least 16 of those hours. She was my buddy. We talked about her friendships in high school, I quickly learned about her sass as she gave me directions to our destinations, she made me laugh, she laughed at my jokes, she told me my bad jokes were bad but she accompanied me. She was my buddy that trip. She knew that I needed someone to make the long drive bearable and she was willing to be the person who kept me company. I’ll never forget that time together.
   Once she joined leadership everyone was right about her. She was committed to our ministry and had a gift for outreach. She was willing to talk to just anyone with boldness. That’s one word that most of us use to describe her. She was bold. She was fearless and she made Wesley a better place for it.
   I felt compelled to write about Alyssa because she taught our community so much. She taught us to not be afraid to invite people to church, to not be afraid to engage new people in conversation. Alyssa taught us the importance of community and I know that she valued the friendships she made at Wesley calling them not just friends, but family. She was a special girl who could become anything that she desired. She could’ve ran for president, could’ve been a doctor, she was one of the brightest people in our ministry and she possessed a gift even greater than intelligence, she had the gift of grit. She was a young lady who was strong, independent, and willing to overcome any obstacle that was thrown her way even if she was crying, crawling, or struggling through it.
   It was a blessing to be her Pastor and I wish I had spent more time with her. My family and I are broken hearted as are many of our students. But as Christians we believe that she is in a better place where there is no more suffering, no more pain, and that she is at peace with our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. I have no doubt in my mind that Alyssa is in heaven because she was a faithful Christian who had a deep connection with God. She is going to be truly missed and our ministry will never forget her.
   One of my favorite songwriters wrote a song for his passing grandmother and he writes, “You’re still singing, singing your song, You’re still giving even when you’re gone.” Every time I hear those lyrics I think of Alyssa. Even though Alyssa is gone physically she is still giving, she is still singing. Alyssa has left a lasting impression in my heart and has forever inspired me to live life with more meaning.
   I believe that we each carry a little bit of Alyssa in our hearts. Every time we share her story, every time we imitate her boldness, every time we gather together and appreciate one another a little bit more knowing that life is fleeting. Every time we serve with our whole hearts we remind each other of Alyssa. Her life sang a song to the world and we will forever remember the melody and music she brought into our lives. Her song will forever live in our hearts.

Alyssa,
you’re still singing, singing your song,
you’re still giving, even when you’re gone.

"Jesus take the Wheel" A sermon by Kyle Cox

Jesus Take the Wheel

Hey everyone! For those of you who don’t already know me, my name is Kyle and I have been attending Wesley for a little over two years now. You know, if you would have told me three years ago that I would be delivering a sermon one day, I probably would have said that you were clinically insane. Three years ago, the words faith and God were barely even in my vocabulary; but thanks to the persistence and, if I am being honest, nagging of my good buddy Will Hetico, I was introduced to one of the best, if not the best, community that I have been a part of during my time here at UCF. Two and a half years after finally deciding to give this whole Christianity thing a try, I can honestly say that my life has forever been changed by Wesley for the better. Over the past two and a half years, I have been accepted and loved by this community and I was eventually encouraged to join leadership as a community group leader which, in itself, has been an incredibly humbling and rewarding experience for me.

Which brings me to why I am here today speaking with you. Erwin approached me one day, not really asking, more so telling me that I would be delivering a sermon to you all at some point this summer and after much resistance I finally said yes. After all, as Erwin always says, “It’s all about saying those little yeses to the things God is calling us to do in our lives.” So, this evening I am going to be speaking to you about a topic that is very close to my heart and something that I have struggled with fairly frequently in my life. The title of my sermon is “Jesus Take the Wheel” and it is about trusting God, plain and simple.

I have Proverbs 3:5-6 written on my bathroom mirror. It says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” I struggle with this verse so much! I am the type of person where I need to understand everything. I have a passion for knowing how things work. Honestly, it’s one of the reasons why I want to be a doctor. So when this scripture tells me to trust God and lean away from my own understanding, I get very uneasy. I want to be in control of my life. Before I found Christ, I operated under the “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” mantra so my tendency, especially during seasons where my faith is tested, is to always focus on doing things myself and doing things that I want to do. I tend to revert back to my old egocentric tendencies, grab hold of the wheel of my life, and focus only on the things that I want to focus on; which, more often than not, results in me spinning out of control and driving myself into a wall; figuratively.

Even today, being called to stand before you and deliver a sermon is something that I have struggled with because Lord knows I struggle with public speaking. There was one weekend we were doing a Change For Change fundraiser at a local church and I unknowingly and stupidly volunteered myself to speak to the congregation and explain what the funds were going to be used for. I was totally unprepared as I stood up there, microphone in hand, visibly shaking as I spoke. It was the most grueling minute or so of my life. But that wasn’t even the worst part! The worst part was when a woman in the front row goes, “Oh honey, I hope he doesn’t want to be a surgeon…” For those of you who don’t know, that is exactly what I want to do with my life. So as embarrassing as that was I’m like, “God, are you sure you still want me to do this??” Another reason why I’ve struggled with speaking today is because, even though a lot of people in Wesley look up to me, I feel in my heart that I am the least likely person to deliver a sermon. I know in my heart the doubts that I have had, the struggles in faith that I have had, and sins that I have committed and don’t feel that I am worthy of such a task, let alone speaking about a subject that I have struggled so frequently with. But hey, maybe that is why God called me to speak about it? Who knows?

But we all go through seasons such as these. I’m sure you all can agree that our faiths can be a roller coaster at times; a constant ebb and flow between seasons of spiritual abundance and drought, abundance and drought. And your struggle doesn’t necessarily have to be like mine. If you recall back to the sermon series Erwin did about “Seasons”, seasons of struggle don’t necessarily have to mean droughts in faith or doubting God. It can be anything: seasons of depression, seasons of silence, stagnation, complacency, transition, stress, sadness, etc. Insert struggle here. Your season might be a season of financial instability. Or maybe you might be uncertain about the future. Or your struggle can even be the fact that you just don’t feel God in your life. Or maybe you just don’t believe in God or you’ve stopped believing entirely. In one way or another, we all experience some form of struggle in various seasons of our lives. But when we are in these seasons of struggle it can be incredibly difficult to constantly keep our focus on God. The reality is, when we get caught up in life, we tend to put our own priorities above His.

When I was looking through scripture to use in this sermon that best captured how God responds to us in seasons such as these, the one story that stood out most to me was the story of Jonah. Jonah is a story that many of us know about but we’re going to take a deeper look at it today.

The story of Jonah begins with God calling Jonah to perform a task. Here it is:

(Read Jonah 1)

So there is a lot of stuff in this first chapter but, before I dive in and start explaining things I want to provide a little context into the back story of the Book of Jonah. Jonah was a preacher who was often regarded as a prophet in Israel. In Hebrew, the word prophet literally translates to the “one who carries the burden”. So, when God tells him to travel to Nineveh and preach against them, it isn’t as if he is being called to do something that is completely out of the scope of his capabilities right? So why does he flee? Why does he run away? And when I say “run away”, I don’t just mean he ran away. He got the heck out of dodge!! I want to show you this graphic really quick. 

 At the beginning of the book when Jonah receives his call, he is located in a town called Gath-Hepher which is here in modern day Israel and God is calling him to travel roughly 600 miles northeast-ish to Nineveh which is located in modern day Iraq, I believe. But what does Jonah do? He travels south to Joppa, and boards a ship to sail waaaayyyy over here to Tarshish which is located 2200 miles in the opposite direction in the south of modern day Spain! Spain Guys!!That is clear across the Mediterranean ocean! And to give you an idea for how far Jonah wanted to run, during his time, Tarshish was considered the most distant city known to man in the entire world!!! So what would make him want to disobey God’s call so bad that he would rather travel to the ends of the known world?

According to many scholars of the bible, and when I say scholars I mean Erwin (JK), there are several postulates as to why he may have fled God’s call.

1.)   The first and most recognizable one is that Nineveh is straight up just a messed up place. The bible quickly alludes to it saying that “its wickedness has come up before me” but this is a serious understatement!! To many people in that region, the Ninevites, were people who were capable of unspeakable terrors! There are stories of how the people of Nineveh were would often commit mass murder and terrorize foreigners so Jonah may have just been scared for his life to travel to a place like that.

2.)   Another reason he may have fled God’s call is that, to the Hebrews, Nineveh specifically was a place that they resented. When I mentioned mass murder earlier, Hebrews were the most common victims. So for Jonah to travel to Nineveh to preach to them and try to save them would be totally blasphemous. It’s almost as if a Jew who had endured the Holocaust went back to Germany to try and save Hitler. He would have been instantly ostracized, hated, and exiled from his people because why on earth would you want to save someone who caused his people such pain, anguish and terror?? So I can only imagine that Jonah wouldn’t want to put himself through that sort of public humiliation.

3.)   The last and, to me the most important reason why he may have fled God’s call, is that, yes he was being called to do something he was good at, preaching; but it just wasn’t in the manner in which he envisioned it being. In Jonah’s time, Israel was separated into two factions Northern and Southern Israel and, according to history, Northern Israel was also a pretty messed up place. Maybe not quite on the level of Nineveh, but it still had its fair share of problems. Southern Israel wasn’t as bad as the North but at least every once in a while a God-appointed King like Saul, David, or Solomon to come into the picture lead them from their misfortunes. So to a Hebrew preacher, preaching to save Northern Israel, a land of his own people, was a good call and one that he probably would have preferred to carry out.

But God didn’t want to send him to Northern Israel; he had better plans for Jonah. All of these things that went through Jonah’s head were things that he had in mind for himself. Jonah had placed his own priorities ahead of God’s priorities. Don’t we all do this? At some point or another, don’t we all put our own priorities ahead of God’s priorities? Don’t we all put God in the back seat and try to take the wheel ourselves? We want to say “I don’t like this change that is occurring in my life, I’m going to go the other way, I want to build my own identity, to live life as I want to live it, I am going to control my life.” I know I do. All the time.

You see guys, Jonah is just like us. But then, something interesting happens, and this is the important part. God intervenes! Jonah 1:4, “Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.” Then, after confessing to the sailors that he was running from God’s call, Jonah gets thrown overboard and again, God intervenes!! Jonah 1:17, “Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” God intervenes! Crazy, right?

Now I know that this is one of the most exciting books in the bible in terms of action but I am pretty dang sure that this book was not written just because they wanted to tell a cool story about how a man was eaten by a fish and chilled in his stomach for three days and nights. I believe that this book was written to show us that God is constantly intervening in our lives to bring us closer to where he wants us to go in His Great Plan for us. If you didn’t know that, whelp spoiler alert, HE DOES!!! And guess what else?? His plan is GOOD!!! Jonah had a task sent by God and he ignored it because he was so overwhelmed by it that he was determined to flee to the ends of the earth, but God says “No, I have better plans for you.” He wanted to let him know, “Hey, it’s not about YOU! It’s not about YOU saving a nation, or about YOU putting yourself in danger. It’s about THEM. The PEOPLE of Nineveh, and helping OTHERS come to know Christ. THAT is what is important. THAT is my plan for you!” So God intervened. He sent a storm to provoke Jonah to jump ship and then rescued him by sending a great fish to swallow him up. And while Jonah was in the belly of the fish, do you know what he does? He prays. Hard. Basically all of Jonah two is Jonah’s prayer to God.

(Read Jonah 2, but stop before the last verse)

Jonah pours himself out to God! Oh and look what happens next, Jonah 2:10, “And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” God saves him.

This brings up another interesting point. Even though Jonah doubted and doubted God and His plan for him and even though he tried to run to the ends of the Earth to flee Him, God still saves him. Jonah defied God. Yet God still saved him. Is that not Grace at its finest?! It’s intriguing here in this story how God appears to be vengeful when he sends the storm that is so violent that it threatens to break up the ship and cause everyone on board to drown but then God shows compassion to Jonah and rescues him from the depths of the ocean. Jonah then goes on to Nineveh to preach to the people about their wicked ways, they listen and accept God as their Lord and Savior, God shows compassion to them, and Jonah saves the city. This is how God works in us! God still seeks to use us no matter what season we are in. Jonah was a sinner who defied God, yet God still used him to save Nineveh. That has to be so encouraging for us!! Even when we are beaten, even when we are in doubt, when we don’t have faith, when we are struggling, God still yearns to use us and to bring us closer to Him and what He has planned for us!!

There was a poster that I saw once that said “Do you seriously thing God can’t use you? Noah was a drunk, Abraham was too old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses had a stuttering problem, Gideon was afraid, Samson had long hair and was a womanizer, Rahab was a prostitute.” And this list goes on and on! “Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, David had an affair and was a murderer, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached naked, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow, Job went bankrupt, Peter denied Christ, the disciples fell asleep while Jesus was praying, the Samaritan woman was divorced, Zaccheus was too small, Paul was too religious, Timothy had an ulcer, and Lazarus was DEAD!!” All of these people were written about in scripture to show us that we are not perfect!! But despite our imperfections, God still uses us for great things!!! Can I please get an AMEN!!! (That one is for you Erwin). We all go through struggles but God still uses us.

The story of Jonah speaks particularly profoundly for me because I can relate to it in so many ways. At the beginning of this summer, as many of you know, Wesley took a mission trip to Costa Rica; but, the months or so leading up to the trip was a season of serious spiritual drought for me. At that time, I was so caught up in trivial things like drudging through work, lusting after women, and going out every night that I had eventually pushed God out of my life. I was in the driver’s seat and I was only focusing on what I wanted to focus on. In the back of my head, I knew that my heart and my mind weren’t in the right place but I ignored that still small voice and continued to live a self-centered and sinful life.

                  So, when this mission trip came around, I’ll be honest it totally snuck up on me. I think it took Erwin or Charity saying, “Hey dude, you do realize we have a mission trip in like two days right?” for me to even start thinking about what I needed to pack. But the biggest concern for me going into the mission trip was that I never took the time to mentally or spiritually prepare myself for the ways God would be working in my life while in Costa Rica. I actually found myself dreading the trip, because I was afraid to be emotionally bombarded when God started knocking on the door and asking me to confront all the sin and things I had been repressing or ignoring in my life. Like Jonah, I too wanted to flee from God and what he had in store for me. But I knew there was really no way out of it, so I decided to go anyway but I had created this shell around my heart in hopes that God wouldn’t be able to penetrate it.

On the way to the airport the morning we were supposed to board the plane and leave, I actually had my first conversation with God in a long time. I asked, “God, are you sure you really want me to go on this trip?” And I kid you not, not two minutes afterwards, my car fish tailed coming off the exchange ramp between the 408 and the 417. I had lost control and spun out into a wall (literally this time). My car was totaled. And there was seemingly no way that I was going to make it to the airport before the flight left in an hour and half. I looked up and said “Well God, you have my attention. I guess you don’t want me going on that trip after all.” But then, God said, “No son, I have better plans for you!” And he went to work!

Florida Highway Patrol showed up almost instantly, which (if you have ever been in an accident you know) almost never happens, to evaluate the accident and while he was writing my ticket, the tow truck showed up to take my car away. The police officer walks out and recognized my insurance as protective services insurance that I got from my dad being in law enforcement and said, “I don’t normally do this, but out of respect for your father I will not write you this ticket.” Still stranded in the middle of the road in the rain, I called Erwin to tell him that I wasn’t going to make it because I was in a car accident. But then he called Charity, who got out of bed and went out of her way to pick me and my roommate up to take me to the airport so I could make my flight on time and then took my roommate, who she barely even knows, home. Not to mention the most miraculous part in that no one was hurt. Not even a scratch! I could have ended up dead in the ravine, I could have flipped over the guard rail, there could have been another car; but it was just me and the wall. God worked in my life!

As I mentioned earlier, I made the flight and I had an incredible experience in Costa Rica, building a well for a community who didn’t have access to clean, usable water. But even more so, I had opened my heart to God, and allowed Him to work in me the way the He had intended. It blows my mind how perfectly this series of events symbolized my life and how God works in it; how it symbolizes OUR lives and how God works in it. Just like Jonah, I turned my back on God. I took hold of the wheel of my life and lost control and drove into a wall, but God was there for me. It was almost as if He said “Kyle, Listen to me! I have better plans for you than you have for yourself!” And he rescued me from the depths of the ocean. God still used me to do His work in Costa Rica. He is using me right now to speak to you.

If there is anything that I want you to take home from tonight, it is that God is actively intervening in our lives and that he uses us and wants to use us, sometimes in the most unexpected seasons and in the most unexpected ways.

A little over a year ago I was finally starting trying to embrace my faith in God but I realized that I didn’t really know a lot about God and how he communicates with us or how we communicate to him so I went searching for answers and I found many of them in a book called Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson. If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it! It is a super easy read. It is basically a 40 day devotional that you can do during lent, or really whenever, but each day is basically 4-5 pages of reading that challenges you to communicate with God through prayer and to try and see how God is communicating to you in your everyday life. Those of you on leadership may know that I quote phrases from this book fairly frequently during our discussions and such, but one sentence that stuck out to me that illustrates how God works in our lives and has been extremely enlightening to me ever since I read it, is this: “God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time, but it is up to us to see and seize those opportunities that are all around us all the time.” I love this quote! I almost envision that as we are moving through our day to day lives, he is continually opening doors for us and through those doors is a life better than what we envision for ourselves. But he never makes us walk through those doors; that is up to us to recognize where those doors are, trust that wherever those doors lead are going to make us better, and walk through ourselves.

So I challenge you to try and see how God is working in your life. Try to recognize what doors he is opening for you in your life. But I have to warn you. There are always two doors: one leading towards salvation and what God has planned for you and another that leads to where you think you need or want to go. I wish the story of Jonah ended with him saving Nineveh and everything was all hunky-dory but the reality is that in chapter four, Jonah curses God and is angry with him. This coming just after he professed his life to God, saying “I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple,” and “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD’”. But this is important to understand. I wish I could tell you that all you have to do is trust in God and that He’ll save you and everything will be okay after that but life is not like that. Life is not always upward shooting. There are always two doors. And you know what? We are going to walk through the wrong door, even when we’ve been walking through the right ones for a while. If you are a recovering alcoholic or drug user, there will always be an opportunity to use or drink. If you struggle with pride, there will always be an opportunity to boast or put someone down rather than humble yourself and encourage others. The struggle will always come back. I still struggle with trusting God, and all the things I mentioned earlier. But the great thing is that God will continue to create doors for you even when you choose incorrectly. If you don’t walk through one that he wants you to, then later down the road, there will be another, and another. God will always be there for you ehen you decide to come back; even when you make the wrong decisions or miss out on His opportunities.

So how do we move forward? How do we put our trust in God during our seasons of struggle and doubt? How do we recognize when God is intervening in our lives for us? The first thing that comes to mind is prayer. After all, communication is a two way street, right? How can you expect Him to communicate with you if you don’t communicate with Him? Second, is to put your self aside and put God first. Sometimes we get so caught up in life that all we can think about is ourselves and how we can survive the season we are in but we need to swallow our pride and egocentricity and put first what God would want us to do rather than what we want to do. And most importantly, I don’t know if you all caught the ESPY’s last week, but Stuart Scott was giving his acceptance speech after winning the Jimmy V Perseverance Award and said something that caught my attention. For those of you who don’t know, Stuart Scott is a TV analyst for the ESPN show SportsCenter and has been fighting cancer for the past seven years. But while giving his speech, he said this. “When you die, it does not mean you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live. So live! Live! Fight like Hell! And when you get too tired to fight, then lay down, and rest, and let somebody else fight for you.”

Let God fight for you! God wants to help you. God wants to intervene in your life and bring you closer to him. God can and wants to use you in any season of your life and in a manner that will make you a better person and give you a better life than you can envision for yourself. So when you are experiencing struggle, and doubt, and you feel like you can’t fight; Let God fight for you. Seize the opportunities that God presents to you in your life and walk through the doors that He opens for you. “Trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” And most importantly, let Jesus take the wheel.

Let’s Pray.

 

 

Sex

Last Tuesday I spoke about sex under the new sermon series, "A New Conversation." I have to admit that while I believe that the sermon hit a lot of good points, it was not one of my strong ones. As a Pastor we always want to be confident and we need to appear sure of ourselves when in truth that's not always the case. I wish I could preach the sermon all over again. I think one of these Tuesday's thats just what I'll do.

I want to clarify some important and lost points that I was trying to make on Tuesday night. My hope in writing this blog is to bring clarity to what may have seemed blurred in Tuesday's message.

I would like to give you a table of contents of sorts so that that you can go ahead and scroll to the part that you need clarity on and to save you time from what can be a long blog. I know you have classes to take and papers to write. But still, I thank you for taking the time out to read this.

Finally I will give you a chance to post questions that I will be happy to answer if you still feel a bit unsure about what this all means.

Final note: Alot of my ideas have come from scripture reflection, Lauren Winner's "Real Sex" and time spent studying the issue through Itunes U, Podcast, Sermons and personal experience. But I rely heavily on Lauren Winner's book. You should read it! Heck I'll buy it for you if you let me know you are interested. Promise.

Here is the table of contents.
1. What I hope this sermon series does not do.
2. What is the purpose behind the title, "A New Conversation."
3. Is sex practiced outside of marriage a sin? Biblical Proof

What I hope this sermon does not do

I have to be honest. I am both afraid and feel boldy called to preach on all of these issues. One reason I am afraid is because I do not want to create separation in our community or build controversy in such a way that we build walls between one another. I am often frustrated and saddened by the way that people with different opinions cannot be in community together and attack one another in such a way that we create "others," we create hate and more dissension in an already broken church.

I have a strong conviction that I am a coward if as a leader I am not talking about "hot" topics. I believe that communities in the local church seem superficial. I feel as though not many people in the church are seeking true holiness and so we have become a place where we are having fun, we are making friends but there is no transformation. A place where we are not seeking God's best for one another and we are just another social club.

Note: that I love the fact that our community and the relationships made here are strong, but I believe they can be stronger. I believe they can be stronger if we begin to open up to one another about our true hurts, our true struggles in such a way that we are always helping one another overcome the sins that prevent us from growing closer to God.

I don't know everything, Im young in the ministry and I want to be better. Truthfully, seminary does not talk a lot about the very practical ways in which we can become better preachers. There are a lot of things that you have to figure out on your own. When it comes to sex I don't know a whole lot. I have read, I have prayed and I have also fallen. I have had pre-marital sex both as a Christian and as a non-believer and know personally the repercussions and the pleasures of living in both worlds. So, I do not have all the answers. Neither will I pretend to. Yet, I still feel that as your pastor if I am not willing to struggle in front of you and talk about sex, why should you? I want to lead by example.

SEX IS NOT A BAD THING. I do not hope to make you feel guilty about sex. Because sex is good...real good. I do hope that you will see sex as crucial to discipleship. If you have had sex before, if you are having sex now the concern is not so much with sex itself. The concern is whether you are defining your own holiness or are you allowing God to be your Lord. Is Christ Lord over your entire life, even the way you think about sex? If not I know that it takes time. Discipleship is about making Christ the center of your entire life and it about slowly, daily, giving to God every aspect of your life. So don't feel guilty, I believe that as Christians we are called to walk through the difficult path that it is to follow Christ and lay it all at the foot of the cross.

Finally, you can believe what you want to believe. What I write here is what as a church we believe to be orthodox, right thought. You don't have to believe this, but I do ask you to pray about it and have conversations regarding this topic and allow the Lord to have say in your life.

What is the purpose behind the title, "A New Conversation."

The title of the series has a three-fold purpose.

1. I am hoping that we will bring topics such as sex, suicide, being gay, drugs alcohol into our conversations with one another. I believe that if we ignore these topics we lose a very valuable part of what it means to be a community. So if your old conversations were only about Harry Potter, the NFL or Breaking Bad my hope is that your new conversations will be about the ways that you are growing in Christ. My hope is that you will have a conversation about your questions on self worth, suicide, sex, LGBTQ communities, and what it means to be a person who find holiness strenuous.

2. I want to, in some ways, update what we believe about sex. This does not mean that you will not hear the same thing over. You will hear the same conclusions in some of these ideas. Partly because we have a high respect to tradition and those who have come before us and still hope to uphold the values and the piety that the church has passed down. So updated does not necessarily mean erasing or accepting new controversial or immoral ways of living. So you will not hear from me that having sex before marriage is ok. But you will hear that kissing is ok, being alone if you are strong enough is ok, and that if you do have sex God loves you the same.

Is sex practiced outside of marriage a sin? Biblical Proof

Finally I know a lot of people have been saying that they are still not sure if sex before marriage is a sin. The short answer is YES. God created sex for marriage. And I will tell you how Christians have come up with this answer.

Often times Pastors have given 1 or 2 texts for a person to read when someone confesses that they have had sex. But as United Methodist that's not the way we read the bible. We do not always take 1 text and follow it blindly. We look at the Bible as an entire story and make logical sense of topics that seem to be isolated from the entire story of God.

The Body Metaphor
As Lauren Winner explains, "To be sure, scripture has plenty to teach us about how rightly to order our sexual lives, but as the church, we need to ask whether the starting point for a scriptural witness on sex is the isolated quotation of "thou shall not," or whether a scriptural ethic of sex begins instead with the totality of the Bible, the narrative of God's redeeming love and humanity's attempt to reflect that through our institution and practices."

The first point that I tried to make is that "Christ made us with bodies, that is how we being to know that he cares how we order our sexual lives." Further more, "God created us with bodies, God himself incarnated in a human body, Jesus was raised again from teh dead with a body, and one day we too will be surrected with our bodies. That is the beginning of any Christian ethic--any moral theology--of how human beings in bodies interact with other bodies."

In the end what I hope you hear from these texts is that GOD CARES ABOUT WHAT WE DO WITH OUR BODIES. God cares enough that he came in a human body to redeem us.

Returning to Eden
The second point I was trying to make is the point of RETURNING TO EDEN. Pastors, theologians and scholars mostly agree that Genesis 1 is the starting point for understand God's vision and plan for humanity (You should read Genesis 1 and 2 just in case it's not fresh in your mind).  Lauren Winner explains, "Genesis is only the starting point for understanding God's vision of the body. And just as scriptures vision of bodies begins in Genesis, scriptures story about sex also begins in Genesis. God's vision for humanity is established in the Garden of Eden and the uniqueness and one-ness of the marriage realtisohip between Adam and Eves is inagurated in Genesis 1-2."

This is where God speaks of Adam and Eve becoming "One Flesh." "One fleshness is and is not a metaphor. It captures an all encompassing, overarching oneness- when they marry (couples) enter an institution that points them toward familial, domestic, emotional and spiritual unity. But the one flesh of which Adam speaks is also overtly sexual, suggesting sexual intercourse, the only physical state other than pregnancy where it is hard to tell where one person' body stop and the other's starts."

This is the beginning of God's plan for sex and marriage. To be one flesh with one person that you are committed to for the rest of your life familial, domestic, emotional and spiritually under God's covenant.

The ongoing logic for sex before marriage continues with the ethical language of "Memory" coined by Stanley Hauerwas. We believe that even though we are fallen, we remain part of God's original creation. Even though we sin God still has his image in us. God still believes, hopes and calls us to remember who we are, what we are intended to do. And so Hauerwas explains that ethics, or Christian living, is an attempt to keep us faithful to the character (the story and skills) of our community lest we forget who and why we are." When we forget whose we are, what we have been created for, and the story and hope found in the book of Genesis we sin. Hauerwas writes, "In theological terms, we call such forgetfulness 'sin,' as we literally forget what we are about as people who have been created by a God who sets our way."

And so the laws that we have been given, the ethics that we are trying to live into. And by laws I mean the way the Bible seems prude and tells us how to live out life. Those laws are "articulating boundaries and regulations that protect God's original intent that sex can be expressed in marriage..they are efforts to protect and perpetuate the ordering of things that was established in the Garden of Eden."

The Mosaic Laws, found mainly in the Old Testament include avoiding incest and bestiality and they are "protecting, point to guarding and helping us retrun to Eden--to God's created order, the world as God meant it to be." RETURNING TO EDEN.

Now Paul uses a very important word in the New Testament, Porneia. The greek word is believed to be a category of sexual immorality  So Porneia is sexual immorality. The Bible then says that Porneia is a sin. And then it lists in different text what is included in the category of sexual immorality. So if you believe that sexual immorality is a sin, this is what is included under that category. And we know these topics are included in this category because the word Porneia is used specifically to refer to the specific immorality. The term Porneia in the New Testament includes, prostitution, adultery, incest, and sleeping with your father's wife.

Then we see that Porneia is also included in sex outside of marriage. Lauren Winner explains it best when she says, "In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul invokes porneia when he is forbidding Corinthians from patronizing prostitutes. In the next chapter Paul uses porneia again, this time telling the unmarried and the widows that it is better to marry than to burn with desire. In this secon passage, logic tells us that porneia must mean sex outside of marriage--if the only two options are marriage or smoldering with desire, it follows that sex outside of marriage is not an option."

So here is the logic "Porneia is sin, intercourse by unmarried people is porneia therefore intercourse by unmarried people is sin."

1 Corinthians use of porneia as sex before marriage is also strengthened by something else that Paul says..." In the middle of his first letter to the Corinthians, right after enjoining the Corinthians not to sleep with prostitutes and right before instructing the unmarried that it is better to marry than to burn, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24: 'The two shall become one flesh." Paul's quotation is something of shorthand--it tells the reader to flip back to the second chapter of Genesis to find both the basis for and the elaboration of Paul's words on sexuality. Paul understands sex as part of the ordering of creation." For Paul sex as found in Genesis is the way God intended us to have sex...within marriage.

This is where my brain got blurry...so I'll stop.

I hope this helps, and please feel free to drop me a comment here, or an email Erwin.Lopez@flumc.org

Women's Retreat

This semester has been packed with activity.  One of my favorite events thus far has been our 2013 Women's Retreat held in Deland.
Last year the retreat took place in Winter Park, and I was disappointed I missed it.  I hoped we'd return to Park Ave. so I could enjoy impersonating a local sophisticate.  When I heard the plan to spend our weekend in Deland, I was a bit sad at first.  Then I realized what a great opportunity this was.
It's exciting to explore a new place if you keep an open heart.  Wesley's very own Aubrey Lane, Lily Geist, and Jacob Liseno grew up in Deland.  They turned out so well, I knew it had to be a nice town.  ;)
At retreat, everyone blossomed almost immediately.  The Spirit of God was clearly present the entire time, and we let Him express Himself more than we normally do.  (He won't force Himself on us.)  Our community was authentic and strong -- by the end of the trip, many of us had connected deeply with girls we never spoke to before.
This was partially facilitated through an idea we implemented.  A mason jar was bought, decorated and labeled for each girl.  Throughout the retreat, we encouraged everyone to put uplifting notes into the jars as we left them out.  By the end everyone had been blessed and took home a full jar.
I plan to keep mine for a long time.  I may even turn the notes themselves into a work of art, for that's what they already are.  Kind words, loving Truth from God -- they're forms of art with eternal impact.  This idea was cemented into me, by those jars and the prophetic words we spoke to one another.

You never know what impact your words will have.  I don't know just how this post will affect your life, but I pray it's constructive at least.
May we allow God the chance to speak through us.  He will speak if we are willing.

- Jess

Leadership Retreat 2

Humility. That is the word I would use to describe what the most recent leadership retreat taught me. I will admit I walked into the retreat preoccupied and a little cynical. I walked out with a renewed knowledge of why I joined the leadership team at Wesley in the first place, areas of growth I would like to focus on and a renewed excitement about Wesley's ministry to the college students of UCF, Valencia and more. I'm not on leadership to make the staff of Wesley happy. I'm not on leadership to have something to put on my resume. I'm not on leadership so that I can feel good about myself. 

I am on leadership because I have a calling from God - to love Him with all my heart, to love those around me as I love myself, and to bring others to Him by living a life that shows His love and His grace. Wesley's mission is to call college students to new life in Jesus Christ. As a part of the leadership team I have taken a personal vow to do all I can to see this mission through, for His glory, and not mine. This leadership retreat has challenged me to take on an attitude of selflessness this coming semester, and it is my hope that this challenge will strengthen my personal relationship with Christ, as well as show others His unconditional love and grace. 

Leadership Retreat

Wesley retreats always leave me refreshed.  Our Spring 2013 leadership retreat was no different, yet it stood out.  God clearly heaped blessing after blessing on us from the beginning.  These will stick with us through the busy semester.  Let us not forget what we have!

The first day of retreat, I became Wesley's newest intern.  Going into the weekend I had a confidence boost regarding God's provision and my potential.  By the retreat's end, all of our friendships were solidified and spirits were lifted.  We surrendered our plans to Him.  It was divinely contagious.

I'm still excited for His work in our futures.  He has placed so many glorious plans before us, and He'll continue equipping us for them.  We're going to spread the Love like nobody's business.

~ Jess

Commitment

The semester went by so fast. Some of you guys are entering into your final semester, others into your second and others in the middle of a limbo time as you are part freshman-sophomorish-junior...ish.

I am thankful everyday that I get to be your pastor, director, leader or whatever it is that I am. I look around at everything-Wesley that the Lord has blessed me with and I think, "Don't mess it up Erwin." I don't take for granted this move to Orlando or all the new changes in my life since June, especially my wife.

I wanted to write this post for a couple of reasons. One, I just wanted to tell you guys that Wesley will miss you. We are excited for the things that are happening at Wesley and look forward to seeing you all next semester. During this time I encourage you to rest---cause yall look tired sometimes---I aint even gonna lie. Really, take time to be present with family, call each other once in a while, email/fb your community group and tell them you are thinking about them and make sure you stay connected with each other. Hey, if you even want to call me you can. You know my cell phone, if not you should. 305-492-5132

The other reason I wanted to write to you all is to talk about what I preached about last Tuesday, COMMITMENT. Especially given some of the recent events happening in the local news dealing with Summit Church. I know a lot of you attend that church and have heard the news. Im going to keep this short and sweet.

Support your church and pray for the family, for Isaac, and for every person involved. Do not leave Summit. When you join a church you make a commitment before God that you will serve that church. You do not make a commitment to God that you will follow a pastor. As was mentioned, the church is bigger than any one person.

From the people that I have met from Summit they have all been mature believers. This difficult time is going to say something about your faith, your commitment to the church and your community and your trust in grace, healing, and mercy. The Christian life is filled with up and downs and I've said this before...It's Hard as Heck. The only way we can get through some things is together. Together.

When the going gets tough some people get going...they run away..they give up.

When the going gets tough Christians come together, pray, worship, and support one another.

My hope is that you would do the same.