A Note From Tom: June 23rd, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Well, it’s the third full day of summer and so, of course, folks are already talking about it! It’s coming up! Well…not until November…November, 2012! Y’all know what I’m talking about! Election Day!
Wow! It’s gonna be a long campaign! Hope it doesn’t get ugly! Hope they don’t call each other names! Like “the horrid looking wretch…nutmeg dealing (?), hatchet-faced ape”. That’s what one side called the other candidate in one of our election campaigns! It was the 1860 Presidential campaign! They were talking about Lincoln! (He won, by the way.)
His people called him “Ol’ Abe…the Ol’ Rail Splitter!” He never liked to be called those things. He was always a little embarrassed by his “country bumpkin” days.
In his race against Stephen Douglas, both sides “let it fly” against the other. Lincoln’s people said that Douglas, drank too much (he did!) and was “about five feet nothing in height and about the same in diameter the other way.”
The Douglas campaign shot back, “Lincoln is the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.”
Y’know, I guess good advise for voting is always…
1) Vote for the one who you think we need for this moment.
2) And vote for the one who you think could do what no one else could do for us.
Those are the same two reasons you should be in what we call “community groups” on Sunday mornings.
Community groups…and there is one for college folks, one for those just out of college, and two for those who are well on their way “up the hill”, and maybe some even a little “over the hill”…are times (every Sunday, 9:30 to 10:30) just for getting to know each other, share our lives, pray together and learn and talk about the Scriptures together.
And going to a community group is just like voting!
When you go to one regularly, you encourage everybody else in there just by showing up! You’re saying, “Sometimes I need your encouragement. But even if I don’t right now, encouraging you is important to me! I’m here because YOU’RE here. I’m here because I believe God has unique gifts and a plan for you, that no one could do but you. And I want to encourage you as you find all of that. And I’m here because (as St. Paul says) we’re like a human body and each of the parts of it is super important to all the other body parts! “
In other words…
“I’m here because…
1) I believe you are the one we need for this moment.
2) And I’m here because I believe you are the one who can do what no one else can do but you!”
“I’m here because…I vote for you!”
If you’re already in one…Thanks! Thanks for encouraging everyone else in there!
If you’re not in one, why not join one! Just by coming, you cast your ballot for all those “running the race set before them (Hebrews 12.1)
Come to a community group!
Or as Mayor Daley of Chicago said, “Vote early! And vote often!”