March 27, 2020
by Pastor Don Willeman
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Transcript:
Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to a special-edition series of The Kingdom Perspective.

The past few weeks have presented our community with unprecedented challenges. Yet, in times of darkness the light shines all the more brightly. Therefore, I’d like to take today’s program to express thanks and to celebrate the many ways that all of you are serving our community at this critical hour.

So many of you have stepped up to volunteer by bringing a bit of relief to those whose life and work has been significantly disrupted and especially burdened. Here is a sampling of the things Christ Redeemer volunteers have been doing over the past two weeks:
• Daily calls to read scripture and pray with many that are isolated.
• Coffee and donuts taken to all our area schools for teachers that were mandated back to the classrooms in order to prepare for remote learning.
• Notes of encouragement and prayers for our many medical professionals that are battling this outbreak on the frontlines.
• Meals taken to two DHMC units that are working directly to respond to the COVID outbreak, including a 6:00am breakfast delivery for the night shift.
• Many donations of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) requested by DHMC.
• Etc.

Special thanks to Lauren Groves for helping to organize many of these service opportunities. If you would like to help or have some skill to offer, please contact Lauren at the email posted on this podcast transcript.

Finally, I want to thank our many medical professionals and health care leaders that have been working around the clock. Thanks to and to your families for your selfless service to our community! Together, by the grace of God, we will come through this trial strengthened in our ability to serve God and our neighbor.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

NOTE: If you wish to volunteer or know of needs in the community, please email lauren.groves@christredeemerchurch.org to be directed to a CRC point person. We also encourage you to continue to give regularly to support the work of the church. All the more in the face of growing needs in our community, we encourage you to give above and beyond your regular giving, by contributing to the church’s Benevolence Fund. The Benevolence Fund is used in two main ways – 1) to help those with material needs within our church, and 2) to help those with need in the broader Upper Valley Community.

For your convenience here are the links to giving online:
Regular Giving to CRC
The Benevolence Fund at CRC

You may also give by mailing your gifts to Christ Redeemer Church, PO Box 5523, Hanover, NH 03755.

To learn more about CRC’s charitable work and financial giving policy, please visit us at: http://christredeemerchurch.org/home/resources/financial-contribution/

March 25, 2020
by Pastor Don Willeman
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Transcript:
What should we do in the face of the coronavirus epidemic?

We should pray!

Prayer is the cry of desperation, a final resort when there is nowhere else to turn. It is the instinct of every human heart to look up to heaven for help, when all else has failed. There are no atheists in foxholes.

However, for those who know God as their Father through Jesus Christ, prayer is not merely the last resort, but the first response. When anxiety and fear arise, as a matter of first order, we can turn to our God in prayer. The Bible commands us to! Listen to Philippians 4: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

In your care for one another and in your ministry to your unbelieving neighbors, prayer is powerful and irreplaceable. Pray for your neighborhood. Pray for your school. Pray for your workplace. Ask God to give you opportunities to serve those that are anxious or in need. Offering to pray for a friend or co-worker who is sick or fearful is a great way to minister to them and to help direct them to God. We have a God who hears!

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

March 23, 2020
by Pastor Don Willeman
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Transcript:
What should you do as a member of the church do to respond to the coronavirus?

Sacrificially care for those in need.

Fortunately, we have 2,000-years of history of the church facing such crises with love and wisdom. One such example comes to us from a description of the church in 3^rd century Alexandria as a lethal epidemic swept through that ancient pagan city. Listen to a church leader describe the response of Christians:

“[During the great epidemic] most of our… [fellow] Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves.  Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ.  Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead….  The pagans behaved in the opposite way.  At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled even from their dearest, often throwing them into the roads before they were dead…” (Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, 260 AD).

Fortunately, with modern medicine the personal risk of caring for the sick is somewhat mitigated. However, the impulse to care for the sick and dying must not be. The gospel makes us courageous and loving even in the face of death and disease. Why? Because the One who has so loved us has overcome the mother of all fears—death itself!

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

March 21, 2020
by Pastor Don Willeman
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Transcript:
Hello. This is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church and the following Kingdom Perspective is a part of a special series on the coronavirus pandemic.

What should we do in the response to the coronavirus?
We must rethink the arrogant assumptions of our lives.

If this crisis exposes anything it exposes the frailty of our life and the assumptions we make about it. The fact that something so small, that it is unseen to the naked eye, could not only kill me but bring modern civilization to a standstill ought to be a warning to us all.

Your life is not your own. You belong to God. You were made by Him. You were made for Him. You will give an account to Him. Your life is in His hands. To not recognize this, both deeply and continually, is what the Bible calls worldliness—and it is the height of foolishness.

This foolishness is what the New Testament writer James (echoing both Jesus and the Old Testament) goes after in James chapter four. “13 Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”
~ James 4:13–16