When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in East Tennessee and caused closures across Knoxville, it was unclear how long a shutdown would last.
In a typical year, 6th grade students who choose to participate in Confirmation meet weekly with Rev. Rick Isbell to learn more about their faith, the traditions in the United Methodist Church, and how to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. But this has not been a typical year. What was unclear at the start of the 2020-21 school year was if and how a confirmation class would continue at Church Street.
Isbell has taught the confirmation class since he first began ministering at Church Street. Isbell retired in 2019. Each August, he would welcome a new class of students, and spend the next 8 months getting to know them and leading them, along with supportive adult volunteers, in this new era of their faith stories.
“I’d never envisioned that I would do confirmation over Zoom,” Isbell says. “I’d never imagined I’d do a lot of stuff this year through Zoom, but we’ve been able to do it.”
This year, 6th and 7th graders have joined together weekly on Zoom for the 15-person confirmation class.
The 2021 Confirmation Class poses for a group photo on Sunday, April 25 following their confirmation.
Getting started included church staff, members
Isbell says that while he has led the conversation each week, one powerful lesson has come from teaching the confirmation class during a pandemic.
“What I learned is it takes a church to teach a confirmation class,” Isbell says. “It’s not just me, it’s a ton of people that have really helped this come about.”
The first step in moving the confirmation class online was deciding how to take the physical worksheets and interactive activities and replicate them online. Youth Director Jenny Cross developed the online presence for the class, creating an online folder for students to access with worksheets and lessons before arriving to Zoom class on Sunday mornings.
Before Cross could add digital files to the online folder, Rick and Paula Buckner worked to organize and keep track of worksheets and lessons. Once a worksheet was needed, a church staff member like Children’s Director Katryn Bancroft or Associate Pastor Palmer Cantler would find the worksheet in the physical file at the church, share with Doris Lively in the front office who would then scan and send to Cross and Isbell.
Once on Zoom, Melanie and Russell McNutt would ensure that the logistics of on-screen learning were ironed out. Russell is the host most weeks, and both make sure that screens are shared and students are muted at appropriate times. Jeri Strong also joins each Zoom meeting to take attendance.
“It’s been challenging, but it’s also been rewarding to continue to see their faces every Sunday morning,” Isbell says.
Class continues as planned, with only minor changes
In previous years, the confirmation class has been very interactive, with games and other ways to keep the students engaged in their learning. As the class moved to Zoom, Isbell worried about the engagement of the students.
As the class began in the fall, Isbell struggled to get responses on the Zoom format. But, through trial and error, teachers realized the best way to communicate with the students was by using Zoom’s chat feature. In one 45-minute session, more than 100 chats were sent by the students.
“One of my favorite things about the Confirmation process is observing these middle schoolers connect the dots between what we say we believe and putting our faith into action,” Cross says. “They are thoughtful, dedicated, and eager to learn. It is truly a joy!
In addition to Zoom classes each week, students have participated in mission activities to teach the importance of service and compassion in the Christian faith, just like they would any other year. The students collected items for Beacon of Hope Food Co-Op, and the first drop off for those items was at the end of February. The second drop off was on Saturday, and 330 total individual items were collected for Beacon of Hope by this year’s class.
The students have also collected money for their compassion banks for Heifer Project International. This money was also dropped off on Saturday, and the total raised was $540.
Confirmation Students and Parents met for an in-person, socially distanced Sunday afternoon retreat on April 11.
The major change for the class this year was the absence of the annual retreat. In years past students and parents would travel to an off-campus session with confirmation leaders for a spiritual retreat prior to Confirmation Sunday. In its place, parents have been required to participate on-screen the first Sunday of each month, and on April 11 a special session was held in the Church Street gym to cover some information typically disseminated at the retreat.
Each confirmand has a mentor that is required to attend at least five sessions so they can understand what is being discussed and how to best be a guide and support for their mentee. In addition, clergy members Rev. Catherine Nance and Rev. Tim Best have joined a session from time to time.
“We often say that our children and youth are the church of the future, but I would argue that they are the church of today,” Cross says. “They are already part of the body of Christ, uncovering their gifts and becoming more of who they were designed to be.”
“I believe that this ‘act of becoming’ ultimately makes us more like Jesus. And I’m grateful that Confirmation encourages our students to do just that.”
Complete list of confirmands:
Stephanie Oluwakorede Dahunsi
Claire Beth Elliott
George Miles Anderson
Riley Catherine Cada
Elizabeth Mason Cada
William Young Caroll III
Sarah Elisabeth Cheatam
Samantha Jeanne Ford
Margaret Suzanne Galbreath
Kira Morgan Hertwig
Cole Houston Jackson
Kathryn Elizabeth Johnson
Lila Fay Jumper
Grayson Michael Parker
Mary Reagan Weaver
View a gallery of imagery from the 2021 Confirmation Sunday on the Church Street Facebook here.
All are welcome at Church Street! We believe every person is of sacred worth and created in God’s image. We welcome and celebrate the gifts God has given to all persons without regard to race, color, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender, disability, status, economic condition, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religious affiliation. We respect diversity of opinion and expressions of Christian faith. We believe God loves everyone unconditionally! As God loves us, so let us love and serve in the name of Christ.
Weekly Prayer – April 28
Featured, prayer for todayWeekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of April 25, 2021
Written by Rev. Jan Buxton Wade
Lord of Change, you show us the sacred in everything, even in the simple occurrences in our lives. As you are turning over the season, we feel the warmth of the spring sun, behold the fresh buds and green sprigs, and hear the early birdsong and chattering squirrels. Turn our souls over, too, we pray, that we might unearth the long buried pure intentions once rooted in our hearts. Direct us toward ways in which we might let the old fall away — the old ideas, the obsolete models, and our resistance to change. Transformation often comes with pain, but you, O God of New Beginnings, will instill us with courage to take our first wobbly steps down that rough road of renewal. Hear us, Lord, as we especially seek your transformation in these personal areas: . . . . . . . . . .
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Good Shepherd, we, like sheep, are often myopic, wandering from one situation to another, frightened and disoriented, battered by grievous news of widespread illness and disaster, by blatant acts of violence and destruction, by racial misunderstandings and divisions, by knowledge of innocents who are undeserving of pain and death. Sometimes the weight of the world becomes too much for us to bear and our hearts remain broken. We recall the psalmist who knew you as the Good Shepherd; he never promised that all our pain and woes would cease. Rather, he assured us that you would comfort us with your rod and your staff. Comfort, O comfort your people, Lord, for we are worn and weary. Bring your sheep into your fold once again, that we might learn your gentle ways and follow you to pastures of healing.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
O Keeper, you are often looking out for us, even when we so carelessly graze in dangerous pastures. We pray we do not stray too far from the voice that calls out to us across the way. We know your voice, just as you know ours, so shelter us from all that threatens. And so, with confident hearts, we lay before you these prayers on behalf of our church family:
Joys
-Gratitude: member recovering steadily from surgery
-Blessing of Sunday’s confirmations and baptisms
-Thanksgiving: local availability of virus vaccines
-Appreciation for faithfulness of our Stephen Ministers
-One thankful that cancer meds seem to be working
-Gratitude that heart cath procedure went smoothly
-All who work to help solve violence in our neighborhood
Concerns
-Comfort for family mourning death of cherished husband
-Easing of back pain for one who suffers greatly
-Mother & brother in New Delhi afflicted with Covid
-Steady healing for member with fractured femur
-Patience & healing of painful shoulder injury
-Beloved niece in Iowa recovering from cancer surgery; & guidance for family members & medical personnel supporting her
-Prayers that mentor may recover from Covid
-Covid relief for all suffering in India
-Smooth transition for family moving to another state next week
-Healing touch of God for one in depression
-Easing of anger & tension between neighbors
-All mourning death of brother last Saturday
-God’s strength & courage for two struggling young women
-Healing for two afflicted with lymphoma
We thank you for putting in our hearts a desire to know you more fully, a desire to be more closely bonded to your Son, and a desire to be a better people. Watch over us this week, we may follow the lead of our great Shepherd of the Sheep, who taught us to pray:
Have a Prayer Request?
Confirmation class continues amidst pandemic obstacles
connectors, Featured, YouthWhen the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in East Tennessee and caused closures across Knoxville, it was unclear how long a shutdown would last.
In a typical year, 6th grade students who choose to participate in Confirmation meet weekly with Rev. Rick Isbell to learn more about their faith, the traditions in the United Methodist Church, and how to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. But this has not been a typical year. What was unclear at the start of the 2020-21 school year was if and how a confirmation class would continue at Church Street.
Isbell has taught the confirmation class since he first began ministering at Church Street. Isbell retired in 2019. Each August, he would welcome a new class of students, and spend the next 8 months getting to know them and leading them, along with supportive adult volunteers, in this new era of their faith stories.
“I’d never envisioned that I would do confirmation over Zoom,” Isbell says. “I’d never imagined I’d do a lot of stuff this year through Zoom, but we’ve been able to do it.”
This year, 6th and 7th graders have joined together weekly on Zoom for the 15-person confirmation class.
The 2021 Confirmation Class poses for a group photo on Sunday, April 25 following their confirmation.
Getting started included church staff, members
Isbell says that while he has led the conversation each week, one powerful lesson has come from teaching the confirmation class during a pandemic.
“What I learned is it takes a church to teach a confirmation class,” Isbell says. “It’s not just me, it’s a ton of people that have really helped this come about.”
The first step in moving the confirmation class online was deciding how to take the physical worksheets and interactive activities and replicate them online. Youth Director Jenny Cross developed the online presence for the class, creating an online folder for students to access with worksheets and lessons before arriving to Zoom class on Sunday mornings.
Before Cross could add digital files to the online folder, Rick and Paula Buckner worked to organize and keep track of worksheets and lessons. Once a worksheet was needed, a church staff member like Children’s Director Katryn Bancroft or Associate Pastor Palmer Cantler would find the worksheet in the physical file at the church, share with Doris Lively in the front office who would then scan and send to Cross and Isbell.
Once on Zoom, Melanie and Russell McNutt would ensure that the logistics of on-screen learning were ironed out. Russell is the host most weeks, and both make sure that screens are shared and students are muted at appropriate times. Jeri Strong also joins each Zoom meeting to take attendance.
“It’s been challenging, but it’s also been rewarding to continue to see their faces every Sunday morning,” Isbell says.
Class continues as planned, with only minor changes
In previous years, the confirmation class has been very interactive, with games and other ways to keep the students engaged in their learning. As the class moved to Zoom, Isbell worried about the engagement of the students.
As the class began in the fall, Isbell struggled to get responses on the Zoom format. But, through trial and error, teachers realized the best way to communicate with the students was by using Zoom’s chat feature. In one 45-minute session, more than 100 chats were sent by the students.
“One of my favorite things about the Confirmation process is observing these middle schoolers connect the dots between what we say we believe and putting our faith into action,” Cross says. “They are thoughtful, dedicated, and eager to learn. It is truly a joy!
In addition to Zoom classes each week, students have participated in mission activities to teach the importance of service and compassion in the Christian faith, just like they would any other year. The students collected items for Beacon of Hope Food Co-Op, and the first drop off for those items was at the end of February. The second drop off was on Saturday, and 330 total individual items were collected for Beacon of Hope by this year’s class.
The students have also collected money for their compassion banks for Heifer Project International. This money was also dropped off on Saturday, and the total raised was $540.
Confirmation Students and Parents met for an in-person, socially distanced Sunday afternoon retreat on April 11.
The major change for the class this year was the absence of the annual retreat. In years past students and parents would travel to an off-campus session with confirmation leaders for a spiritual retreat prior to Confirmation Sunday. In its place, parents have been required to participate on-screen the first Sunday of each month, and on April 11 a special session was held in the Church Street gym to cover some information typically disseminated at the retreat.
Each confirmand has a mentor that is required to attend at least five sessions so they can understand what is being discussed and how to best be a guide and support for their mentee. In addition, clergy members Rev. Catherine Nance and Rev. Tim Best have joined a session from time to time.
“We often say that our children and youth are the church of the future, but I would argue that they are the church of today,” Cross says. “They are already part of the body of Christ, uncovering their gifts and becoming more of who they were designed to be.”
“I believe that this ‘act of becoming’ ultimately makes us more like Jesus. And I’m grateful that Confirmation encourages our students to do just that.”
Complete list of confirmands:
Stephanie Oluwakorede Dahunsi
Claire Beth Elliott
George Miles Anderson
Riley Catherine Cada
Elizabeth Mason Cada
William Young Caroll III
Sarah Elisabeth Cheatam
Samantha Jeanne Ford
Margaret Suzanne Galbreath
Kira Morgan Hertwig
Cole Houston Jackson
Kathryn Elizabeth Johnson
Lila Fay Jumper
Grayson Michael Parker
Mary Reagan Weaver
View a gallery of imagery from the 2021 Confirmation Sunday on the Church Street Facebook here.
Senior Spotlight: Claire Hamilton
Featured, YouthOne of our favorite things about the spring semester each year is celebrating our graduating seniors. And this year, we have a special Senior Spotlight series on our blog. Our seniors answered interview questions earlier this spring and it has been so much fun learning their answers! Check back in each week to get to know our seniors better and help to cheer them on as they wrap up high school and prepare for their next steps!
Meet Claire Hamilton!
Weekly Prayer – April 21
Featured, prayer for todayWeekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of April 18, 2021
Written by Rev. Jan Buxton Wade
O Song of the Resurrection, each day and each night you play your bold melody of hope. Such a welcome hymn is difficult to hear, however, when the world seems to be spiraling downward. Newscasts sing of travesties of war in too many places, of random killings of innocents, distrust of public servants and officials, the pervasive penchant for categorizing and condemning those who hold differing opinions, and the ugly disrespect of our own form of government. Let us not address injustice with acts of raging destruction, but with a clarion call for equality. Let us continue to lift our voices in your resurrection song, affirming that love alone conquers evil. And with our Lord’s help, we shall overcome!
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
The epistle writer advised us to: “Cast all your cares upon him, for he cares for you;” therefore, we need not hesitate to bring our concerns into your presence. As we move through the struggles of our lives, let us cling to the conviction that we are not alone. Hear now our pleas for our personal trials . . . . . . . . . . Give us patience, Holy One, for we do sense the movement of your Spirit within our world, bringing hope where there is dread, boldness where there is timidity, and resilience when we faint.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Your goodness, O Lord, washes over us as the cool spring rain. Grant that we might never take for granted the daily gifts you send our way, especially these particular favors we have received most recently . . . . . . . . . . And though undeserving, we exist in your reservoir of grace, knowing you stand ready to accept all these earnest petitions we now offer on behalf of your people of the Church Street community:
Joys:
-Gratitude: member healing well following eye surgery
-Prayers appreciated: friend healing following Whipple surgery
-Member celebrating a move to a new home
-Gratitude: 6-yr old with seizures has received a promising medical report
-Adult son’s living situation has improved
-Attentive family members caring for father in hospice
-One thankful for second Covid vaccination
-Thanksgiving for in-person youth gatherings
-Family grateful for church support during bereavement
-All in our community working for justice and an end to violence
Concerns:
-Healing of husband’s pneumonia & shoulder fractures
-Recovering for colleague recovering from dangerous wound
-Steady healing for member with fractured femur
-Healing of painful tear in shoulder muscle
-Family grieving loss of troubled son
-Comfort for a grieving stepfather
-Friends & family of wife who died at home Tuesday
-Easing of anger & tension between neighbors
-Recovery for single mother, hospitalized with Covid
-Member mourning death of cherished sister
-Two families grappling with major issues
-Beloved father – newly diagnosed lung cancer
-Guidance for family caring for ill brother
-Continued prayers for two afflicted with lymphoma
-Proper diagnosis of long-term illness
-Healing prayers for one recovering from prostate surgery
O Friend Most Patient, forgive the times we have held back, when we have been too reticent to become involved. Give us courage, we pray, to take an active part in addressing grave issues in our own community, in our own era. Let us reach for your hand, which links us with hurting souls next door and around the world; and in true solidarity we shall pray together the words taught us by our Redeemer:
Have a Prayer Request?
Senior Spotlight: Franklin Smith
Featured, YouthOne of our favorite things about the spring semester each year is celebrating our graduating seniors. And this year, we have a special Senior Spotlight series on our blog. Our seniors answered interview questions earlier this spring and it has been so much fun learning their answers! Check back in each week to get to know our seniors better and help to cheer them on as they wrap up high school and prepare for their next steps!
Meet Franklin Smith!
and he will make straight your paths.”
Weekly Prayers of the Church Street Family – April 14
Featured, prayer for todayWeekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of April 11, 2021
Written by Rev. Catherine Nance
O God of the Living Christ, we thank you for the opportunity to worship together. Each Sunday, some gather in the same room, sitting on the same pew; others worship on YouTube and internet. We think of Christians meeting for worship across this city and all around the world – different styles of worship. People we will never meet. People we cannot see – and yet you see us. You see our hearts, our desire to worship you – our desire to know you more fully and dearly. You see our living and our striving to be faithful disciples. Thank you for loving us and receiving us.
We are humbled in this Easter season that you call each of us into a new creation; thank you for allowing us to share in the beauty of your world. The colors of spring around us and the hints of new life reflect your joy in creation. Forgive us when we abuse your earth that you have called us to care for. Make us mindful of the animals, the plants, the water, the air – all life-giving – all connected to the other. Forgive us when we make ourselves lord over creation instead of you.
O God, we are grateful for a nurturing church community that allows us to ask questions, to wonder and to ponder. We think particularly of our Confirmation Class who met on Sunday, nearing the end of their journey but yet at the start of a new one! We are grateful for fellow disciples; those who are new to faith and bring a freshness and exuberance with their inquiries. We are grateful for those long-time disciples who bring a wisdom and patience but who still yearn to know you more deeply. May our words of faith always match our living. When people see us, O God, may they see the reflection of your love and grace.
And as a community of faith, bound together through the immensity of your love and grace, we lift up to you both our praises and our concerns this day. We are a blessed people, aware of our reliance upon your steady guidance, so receive these offerings we voice in this hour:
Joys:
-Two couples celebrate new pregnancies
-One celebrates unanticipated financial assistance
-Thanksgiving: latest scans showed no new cancer
-Grateful for church’s confirmation & youth programs
-Two tolerating lymphoma treatments well
-Gratitude for prayers: knee therapy completed
-Thankful for prayers: back surgery went smoothly
-Prayers appreciated: prostate surgery successful
Concerns:
-Patience for husband in assisted living
-Healing for member recovering from back surgery
-Continued healing for one having infusions
-Healing of painful tear in shoulder muscle
-Upholding all working for solutions to gun violence
-God’s presence with a member grieving untimely death of stepson
-Beloved father – newly diagnosed lung cancer
-Guidance & strength for one caring for an ill brother
-Ongoing prayers for one enduring cancer treatments
-Solace for family mourning sudden death of beloved sister
-Member seeks relief from a painful leg ailment
-Strength for husband whose wife may enter palliative care
-Courage & strength for friend with intestinal cancer
-Young coach at Emory desperately ill with sepsis & his 3-year-old son diagnosed with leukemia
-Continued healing & for restoration of vision
-Improvement for one suffering from anemia
Risen Christ, for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred: open the doors of our hearts, that we may seek the good of others and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace. We offer now the words that Christ taught us to pray:
Have a Prayer Request?
Church Street Preschool helps Knoxville parents save lives during pandemic
connectors, FeaturedWhen the Church Street Preschool closed last March at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in East Tennessee, Director Beth Cooper-Libby and the Preschool Board members expected a closure of two weeks.
“It felt like I was standing on frozen water and the ice broke under me,” Libby says when it became unclear when the Preschool would open its doors again. “I had no idea of what we were going to do.”
And while the Preschool’s closure did surpass two weeks, children returned to the classroom just 39 days after shutting down while most Knox County schools remained closed for the remainder of the spring semester.
During the shutdown, it became evident to Libby the importance of the Preschool to the Knoxville community. Many of the school’s parents work in fields on the frontlines of the pandemic including as nurses, police officers and city and TVA employees.
“I really had to look at what we do in a whole different way,” Libby says. “I always thought we were a mission of the church, but when we became the reason parents were able to go to work during a crisis, I was just like, ‘This is way more mission than I had really thought about.’”
As Libby explored options to help parents by reopening the Preschool, many obstacles created a tense couple weeks filled with uncertainty. The Preschool board, church members and church administrators all helped plan for a safe reopening.
“We kept our sense of humor. We realized that we were all working toward the same goal,” Libby says. “And when we opened, it was nothing but good.”
Libby says the excitement from the students once the Preschool reopened its doors was infectious, as kids played with joy in their classrooms and with their friends.
In addition to wearing masks, student temperatures are checked at the front door before the entry for each day. The two younger classrooms and two older classrooms often participated in activities together like playing on the playground, Easter Egg hunts and Santa visits, but now each classroom operates on its own so there is minimized risk to the larger Preschool population if someone were to contract Covid-19 .
Parents are also not allowed in the building, which Libby says has been a downside to reopening during the pandemic.
“I always felt the students benefited from the teachers and the parents being able to communicate with each other face to face,” Libby says. “…Like Church Street had to learn how to go online [for worship and small groups], Preschool had to figure out what to do when we weren’t having that face to face interaction.”
Now Libby communicates with parents using Remind, a communication platform for teachers and parents, and the Church Street Preschool Facebook page. Also, teachers will often meet and greet with parents in the outdoor breezeway to mitigate risk.
In addition to limited contact between teachers and parents, parents were also asked to pack lunches for students when the Preschool reopened to limit the amount of surfaces touched by outside sources like caterers. The catering staff returned a few months later, and has been serving boxed lunches for students.
Libby says there will be nothing sweeter than returning to the lunchroom. Each classroom now eats in their own room at 12 pm instead of all the students, teachers and staff eating at the same time in the lunchroom.
“The acoustics in the lunchroom are fantastic. I don’t know what Tim’s got up there in the choir room, but trust me, the acoustics in the lunchroom must be 100 times better,” Libby jokes. “I never thought I’d say I miss the lunchroom being so noisy, but I miss the lunchroom being so noisy.”
In addition to following CDC guidelines, extra safety measures have been taken to keep students and staff safe. The lunchroom tables and playground are cleaned in between each use using a Department of Health and Human Services solution, and toys are cleaned and rotated in each classroom during nap time.
An additional door greeter staff position was added to help move children between their classroom and parents as needed throughout the day. Libby also ensured there were two staff members to help give breaks, one for the younger classrooms and one for the older classrooms.
Over the course of the pandemic, Libby wrote and was awarded $20,122.94 in grants for the preschool, which has helped the preschool stay open and pay teachers during any unforeseen shutdowns. The grants were funded through the Tennessee Department of Human Services and The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
Some grant money was awarded specifically for equipment and supplies, which was used for items such as touchless trash cans.
The preschool has only had to shut down two times since it reopened, and each time the parents didn’t have to pay and teachers continued to receive compensation.
“We provided a safe place for parents – especially our essential workers – to leave their children,” Senior Pastor Catherine Nance says. “Children are resilient when they trust the adults around them and feel they are cared for and cared about.”
“I love watching them on the playground and look forward to the day when I can visit in the classroom and share a story.”
Preschool to celebrate 50th anniversary of the Week of the Young Child
Each year, the National Association of the Education for Young Children encourages early learning facilities to participate in Week of the Young Child. This week, the Preschool is celebrating students, teachers, families and the Knoxville community.
Keep your eyes on the Preschool Facebook page to see the children participate in a spirit week with dress-up days like Favorite Color Day and Pajama Day. Each class will end the week with ice cream and cake at snack time to celebrate the end of Week of the Young Child and the Preschool’s 52nd birthday.
Weekly Prayers of the Church Street Family – April 8
prayer for todayWeekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of April 4, 2021
Written by Rev. Tim Best
Have a Prayer Request?
Senior Spotlight: Isabella Johnson
Featured, YouthOne of our favorite things about the spring semester each year is celebrating our graduating seniors. And this year, we have a special Senior Spotlight series on our blog. Our seniors answered interview questions earlier this spring and it has been so much fun learning their answers! Check back in each week to get to know our seniors better and help to cheer them on as they wrap up high school and prepare for their next steps!
Meet Isabella Johnson!
Doubt to Dedication
Featured, lentDaily Lent Devotions from Church Street UMC
Sunday, April 4, Evening
By Johnie Elliott, March 18, 1979
Doubt to Dedication
Read John 20:24-28
The world sometimes has a way of remembering the bad that we do and forgetting the good. Thomas is an example, as a usual thing, when people think of the doubting Thomas. Thomas was the real skeptic. When they received news that Lazarus was dead, it was Thomas that said, “We’d better not go. They will kill us.” When Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you.” Thomas said “Lord, we don’t even know where you are going, how can we know the way?”
When Christ appeared to His disciples Thomas was not present. When he heard the news that Christ appeared earlier Thomas said, “I will not believe except I see.” How often we miss a wonderful experience when we neglect to be in the congregation of those who are worshipping.
Let’s not condemn Thomas too harshly. The world has moved forward because people have dared to doubt. The Wright brothers doubted the axiom that only something as light as a bird could fly. Many doubted that we would ever be able to place a man on the moon. Our age is an age of doubting. Some doubt that religion is the answer to Peace. Others doubt the ability and integrity of our leaders.
There is a difference in honest and dishonest doubt. Thomas wanted to believe but he still had his doubts. Jesus saw in Thomas a valuable quality needed in the Kingdom. He saw in Thomas that quality which was eternally grasping for new truths. Thomas was not gullible to every fad that came along. He could not believe that his Lord was alive when he had seen him crucified on Friday. Yet when Christ revealed himself to Thomas, Thomas cried “My Lord and my God.”
Doubt had given way to dedication. So should it be with our honest doubt. We must work through our honest doubts to dedication to Christ and his church.
Prayer
Lord I Believe, but help me through my unbelief. Amen.
Have a Prayer Request?
Submit your prayer request confidentially by clicking here.