Lousy Way To Run A Business
Stories
Contents
"Lousy Way to Run a Business" by C. David McKirachan
"Cost of Faith" by Frank Ramirez
Lousy way to run a business
by C. David McKirachan
Acts 2:42-47
I’ve told it before that my father instructed me to choose a central theme for my ministry that would help determine my approach to just about everything I did. Though I was young and full of myself, I listened. It took me a while, six or eight months, to come up with something that allowed enough room to navigate and yet would provide the guidance of the Word. It’s a good practice.
Anyway, I chose ‘Family.’ It occurred to me that the church was exactly that, or perhaps should be. The Commandments, the Prophets, the teachings of the Lord, his willingness to give himself, and the epistles of the Apostles all proclaim an invitation to be united by a willingness to treat each other as part of something that is not determined by the achievement or even the virtue of the individual and on the other hand allows, indeed demands, that the individual make choices and act as a free agent, freely. The ideas of grace and forgiveness and love rise out of the relational bonds that bind a family together.
There are two things happening in our culture that seem to be pulling us away from this sense of family. I see it in the church where the necessity for us to keep up with our machines, to be efficient, to run at the speed of the culture demands a departure from the intimacy of family.
It’s been found that the single factor present in the lives of children who perform well, who flourish in their lives, grades, out of trouble, achieving goals, finding satisfaction in life, that stuff, that single factor is dinner around a table with the family, not in front of a screen or in the minivan on the way to the traveling soccer game or everybody eating when they can. The familial bonds created, the socialization learned, the values shared and taught, and the foundational relationships affirmed give the kids a place to stand in a world that forces us away from values that are not centered on the individual, their success, and materialistic achievement.
The church has a tendency to follow the crowd toward moving with our culture toward measurable goals, programs that attract people who want to be amused and affirmed. So we run, scramble, fill up our schedules with trying to get ’em in the door. When the model offered us in the book of Acts is to be a family. Eat together, pray together, and meet each other’s needs. But when are we going to fit that in between our meetings? And you know how hard it is to get families to come to anything. They’ve got so much going on.
Right.
The other tide I see pulling away from such intimacy is our culture’s willingness to be inclusive. ‘Be afraid’ and ‘What’s in it for me’ have become the by words of everything from our architecture to our politics. We don’t build front porches close to the street anymore to speak with our neighbors, we build rear decks inside fences to control who we have to interact with. The master suite has become a retreat from the world and from the family.
And the idea of a foreign policy based on compassion, the kind that is quoted on the Statue of Liberty, “Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, send them the tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” I have no illusions that our nation has always lived up to these amazingly Christian words. We, in dark moments have been anything but compassionate. But the value is a foundation a vision that sheds lights on all of our lives. But only if we are willing to own it.
Acts is full of miracles and courage and a bunch of people who allowed the vision of the inclusive love of God to tear down the walls between them and shed the light of how life can become if we allow it to be a life style. Where the skills and the wealth of some feed the ignorance and the need of others.
That’s a family. That’s the family of God. That’s what we are called to be. And that’s the Good News. Let’s lift that lamp for all the world to see.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
* * *
Cost of Faith
by Frank Ramirez
1 Peter 2:19-25
"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." — 1 Peter 2:22
There’s a book to be found in every Amish home, probably close to the Bible. It’s a popular gift to young couples at Amish weddings. Copies may be passed from generation to generation. It’s over one thousand pages are filled with the stories of over eight hundred martyrs for the faith.
The title page reads “The Bloody Theater, or, Martyr’s Mirror of the Defenseless Christians Who Baptized only Upon Confession of Faith, and Who Suffered and Died for the Testimony of Jesus, Their Savior, From the Time of Christ to the Year A.D. 1660, Compiled from Various Authentic Chronicles, Memorials, and Testimonies, by Thieleman J. van Braght. Translated from the Original Dutch or Holland Language from the Edition of 1660 by Joseph F. Sohm.”
But most of the people who read it call it simply the Martyr’s Mirror. It chronicles the brutal torture and executions of Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who were the spiritual ancestors of the Amish, who were persecuted because they rejected the idea of a state church, believed in adult baptism, and practiced non-resistance. Van Braght drew upon official court records, letters from prison, and witness accounts to tell about the thousands of Christians murdered by other Christians.
Thomas Hermann, for instance, in 1592 “...was immediately apprehended, tortured, sentenced to the fire, and burned. On his way to the place of exection, he composed and sang a hymn, which is still extant. They could not burn his heart; hence they threw it into the lake which was near the place of execution. After him sixty-seven of his fellow believers were executed in the same place.”
Then there was the martyr known simply as Fije, executed in 1549. “The executioner then went up to Fije, tore open his shirt, took the cap from his head, and filled it with gunpwoder. Standing at the stake at which he was to be strangled, Fije expclaimed: ‘O Lord, receive Thy servant.’
“He was then strangled and burnt, and thus fell asleep in the Lord. The common people cried out saying: ‘This was a pious Christian; if he is not a Christian, there is not one in the whole world.’"
In 1568 “a brother named Jan Portier?was apprehended at Meesen. When he had confessed his faith, he was greatly tortured; the first time with screws; the second time, he was drawn up high by his thumbs, with heavy iron weights attached to his feet, and thus severely scourged; but being ruptured, he was not put to the rack. And when these tortured and other threats could not move him to desist or apostatize from the truth he had accepted and apprehended, he was finally sentenced to be burnt. And thus he was put to death for the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, with so small a fire that the smoke suffocated him; which took place without Meessen, at the Spring gallows, in November 1568.”
In 1542 both Balthasar Hubmor and his wife suffered for their faith. The Martyr’s Mirror asserts, “Afterwards they apprehended him and his wife, and brought them to Vienna, in Austria, where, after manifold trials and long imprisonment, he was burned to ashes, suffering it with great steadfastness, and his wife drownded; and thus both steadfastly confirmed with their death the faith which they had received from God.”
Perhaps the most famous story is that of Dirk Willems, who in 1569 managed to escape from his jail cell and fled across a frozen river. He was safely across when the ice broke beneath the feet of his pursuer, who was much heavier. Willems ran back to save his life. His reward was to be returned to prison, and later to be burned alive.
This book with its graphic illustrations is read by parents and grandparents to their children. Amish, because they choose to live a different lifestyle from the larger culture, are still sometimes harrassed and attacked by ignorant and suspicious people. The stories from the Martyr’s Mirror of suffering servants, innocent of all wrongdoing, are a reminder that faith may have a cost.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 7, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Lousy Way to Run a Business" by C. David McKirachan
"Cost of Faith" by Frank Ramirez
Lousy way to run a business
by C. David McKirachan
Acts 2:42-47
I’ve told it before that my father instructed me to choose a central theme for my ministry that would help determine my approach to just about everything I did. Though I was young and full of myself, I listened. It took me a while, six or eight months, to come up with something that allowed enough room to navigate and yet would provide the guidance of the Word. It’s a good practice.
Anyway, I chose ‘Family.’ It occurred to me that the church was exactly that, or perhaps should be. The Commandments, the Prophets, the teachings of the Lord, his willingness to give himself, and the epistles of the Apostles all proclaim an invitation to be united by a willingness to treat each other as part of something that is not determined by the achievement or even the virtue of the individual and on the other hand allows, indeed demands, that the individual make choices and act as a free agent, freely. The ideas of grace and forgiveness and love rise out of the relational bonds that bind a family together.
There are two things happening in our culture that seem to be pulling us away from this sense of family. I see it in the church where the necessity for us to keep up with our machines, to be efficient, to run at the speed of the culture demands a departure from the intimacy of family.
It’s been found that the single factor present in the lives of children who perform well, who flourish in their lives, grades, out of trouble, achieving goals, finding satisfaction in life, that stuff, that single factor is dinner around a table with the family, not in front of a screen or in the minivan on the way to the traveling soccer game or everybody eating when they can. The familial bonds created, the socialization learned, the values shared and taught, and the foundational relationships affirmed give the kids a place to stand in a world that forces us away from values that are not centered on the individual, their success, and materialistic achievement.
The church has a tendency to follow the crowd toward moving with our culture toward measurable goals, programs that attract people who want to be amused and affirmed. So we run, scramble, fill up our schedules with trying to get ’em in the door. When the model offered us in the book of Acts is to be a family. Eat together, pray together, and meet each other’s needs. But when are we going to fit that in between our meetings? And you know how hard it is to get families to come to anything. They’ve got so much going on.
Right.
The other tide I see pulling away from such intimacy is our culture’s willingness to be inclusive. ‘Be afraid’ and ‘What’s in it for me’ have become the by words of everything from our architecture to our politics. We don’t build front porches close to the street anymore to speak with our neighbors, we build rear decks inside fences to control who we have to interact with. The master suite has become a retreat from the world and from the family.
And the idea of a foreign policy based on compassion, the kind that is quoted on the Statue of Liberty, “Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, send them the tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” I have no illusions that our nation has always lived up to these amazingly Christian words. We, in dark moments have been anything but compassionate. But the value is a foundation a vision that sheds lights on all of our lives. But only if we are willing to own it.
Acts is full of miracles and courage and a bunch of people who allowed the vision of the inclusive love of God to tear down the walls between them and shed the light of how life can become if we allow it to be a life style. Where the skills and the wealth of some feed the ignorance and the need of others.
That’s a family. That’s the family of God. That’s what we are called to be. And that’s the Good News. Let’s lift that lamp for all the world to see.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
* * *
Cost of Faith
by Frank Ramirez
1 Peter 2:19-25
"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." — 1 Peter 2:22
There’s a book to be found in every Amish home, probably close to the Bible. It’s a popular gift to young couples at Amish weddings. Copies may be passed from generation to generation. It’s over one thousand pages are filled with the stories of over eight hundred martyrs for the faith.
The title page reads “The Bloody Theater, or, Martyr’s Mirror of the Defenseless Christians Who Baptized only Upon Confession of Faith, and Who Suffered and Died for the Testimony of Jesus, Their Savior, From the Time of Christ to the Year A.D. 1660, Compiled from Various Authentic Chronicles, Memorials, and Testimonies, by Thieleman J. van Braght. Translated from the Original Dutch or Holland Language from the Edition of 1660 by Joseph F. Sohm.”
But most of the people who read it call it simply the Martyr’s Mirror. It chronicles the brutal torture and executions of Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who were the spiritual ancestors of the Amish, who were persecuted because they rejected the idea of a state church, believed in adult baptism, and practiced non-resistance. Van Braght drew upon official court records, letters from prison, and witness accounts to tell about the thousands of Christians murdered by other Christians.
Thomas Hermann, for instance, in 1592 “...was immediately apprehended, tortured, sentenced to the fire, and burned. On his way to the place of exection, he composed and sang a hymn, which is still extant. They could not burn his heart; hence they threw it into the lake which was near the place of execution. After him sixty-seven of his fellow believers were executed in the same place.”
Then there was the martyr known simply as Fije, executed in 1549. “The executioner then went up to Fije, tore open his shirt, took the cap from his head, and filled it with gunpwoder. Standing at the stake at which he was to be strangled, Fije expclaimed: ‘O Lord, receive Thy servant.’
“He was then strangled and burnt, and thus fell asleep in the Lord. The common people cried out saying: ‘This was a pious Christian; if he is not a Christian, there is not one in the whole world.’"
In 1568 “a brother named Jan Portier?was apprehended at Meesen. When he had confessed his faith, he was greatly tortured; the first time with screws; the second time, he was drawn up high by his thumbs, with heavy iron weights attached to his feet, and thus severely scourged; but being ruptured, he was not put to the rack. And when these tortured and other threats could not move him to desist or apostatize from the truth he had accepted and apprehended, he was finally sentenced to be burnt. And thus he was put to death for the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, with so small a fire that the smoke suffocated him; which took place without Meessen, at the Spring gallows, in November 1568.”
In 1542 both Balthasar Hubmor and his wife suffered for their faith. The Martyr’s Mirror asserts, “Afterwards they apprehended him and his wife, and brought them to Vienna, in Austria, where, after manifold trials and long imprisonment, he was burned to ashes, suffering it with great steadfastness, and his wife drownded; and thus both steadfastly confirmed with their death the faith which they had received from God.”
Perhaps the most famous story is that of Dirk Willems, who in 1569 managed to escape from his jail cell and fled across a frozen river. He was safely across when the ice broke beneath the feet of his pursuer, who was much heavier. Willems ran back to save his life. His reward was to be returned to prison, and later to be burned alive.
This book with its graphic illustrations is read by parents and grandparents to their children. Amish, because they choose to live a different lifestyle from the larger culture, are still sometimes harrassed and attacked by ignorant and suspicious people. The stories from the Martyr’s Mirror of suffering servants, innocent of all wrongdoing, are a reminder that faith may have a cost.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 7, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
