OAKLAND HERITAGE CHURCH OF GOD: Amazing Grace

The Little White Church On The Hill

THE LITTLE WHITE CHURCH ON THE HILL

The old oak tree still stands on the hill, it’s branches spreading wide;
The cedar trees with their perfume, lined up, still stand beside
The cemetery, with tombstones old, so peaceful and so still,
But the centerpiece of this rural scene is the little white church on the hill.

Since 1883 it has stood there, a lighthouse to show the way,
A haven for the weary, a place for the burdened to pray.
Jacob Blickensderfer designed it, but God set the dream in his heart.
Oakland needed a churchhouse, where people could draw apart

And come to a place of worship when they needed sweet peace and rest;
A place where they felt God’s presence, when they needed to be blessed;
A place where they sought His healing when the physical body was ill;
Jacob built them this House of Worship, this little white church on the hill.

The bell tower guards the southern side, the bell rings loud and clear
Proclaiming the time of worship has come, as it’s done for many a year;
And the little white church with its doors open wide still welcomes God’s people in
Where the music rings out and the gospel is preached that you can be saved from your sin.

Weathered stones now compose the old library walls where ivy has grown through the years -
A memorial built more than a century ago in honor of one held so dear
Who wrote in his diary that family and business meant so much to him, but still
He was leaving a legacy for others to use– the little white church on the hill.

The old wooden cross which was hand made with love still beckons the weary to come;
It’s the first thing you see when you enter the church and you know that at last you are home
In the little white church which was built long ago for families who wanted to pray,
Where the altar is blessed and stained with the tears of those who were seeking the Way.

Sometimes in the silence of this sanctuary - I sit and it seems I can hear
The laughter of children from days long ago, the memories that now seem so near
Of Jacob, Louisa, and their children, too, who worshiped in this very place.
These walls heard their songs and echoed their prayers as they came to partake of His grace.

And then I can see their caskets, draped with sadness and flowers of mourning
Being carried away from this chapel outside to await the final dawning.
When their graves on this hillside will open and this building will be no more,
But the church will all be together on that happy golden shore.

And we will all share our precious memories of the times we gathered here
As we sang and prayed and worshipped in this place we all hold dear;
And I think even heaven will listen, and the angels will all be still
As we remember the blessings of Oakland, and the little white church on the hill.

Written by Pastor Joan Hart on July 26, 2002 in honor of the Oakland Heritage Church of God, formerly the Oakland United Methodist Church, and originally the Oakland Moravian Church, and in memory of Jacob Blickensderfer, who designed and built the church in 1883. Copyright 2002

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Amazing Grace

Grace. It’s been called “amazing”, “marvelous”, “limitless”, “unbounded”, and several other adjectives of a superlative nature.

We know it emanates from God. It has been defined as unmerited favor…… in other words, something God bestows upon us that we don’t deserve and could never earn no matter how hard we worked.

Grace is distinguished from justice and mercy in this way:

Justice is when you get what you deserve.
Mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve.
Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.

Grace is one of those words Christians skip over a lot in reading the Bible, or hearing it preached, thinking we know what it means, but most of us don’t have a clue most of the time.

But when you can put a “face” to grace, the meaning comes forth in all its glory.

Last week we had an opportunity to see how grace works in real life. One of the men in our church “messed up”. He didn’t mean to. He really didn’t do anything bad. Like the proverbial definition of beauty, the immaturity of his actions lay more in the eyes of the beholders, but in our day and time, when perception equals reality, all of us who claim to be Christians must be very aware that people, both inside and outside the Christian community, are watching us, and making judgments, whether rightly or wrongly.

And sometimes our actions extend beyond the bounds of what is socially acceptable even into the realm of what could be considered a violation of the law.

So as a church we dealt with this issue in love, making our brother aware that his actions were being questioned and even criticized.

He accepted the Biblical and legal caution given to him and sought forgiveness for his actions and a willingness to use better judgment.

And while it was difficult for him to come back to church on Sunday because he genuinely believed people no longer liked him, he took that difficult step, and when he walked into the church, he walked into the arms of grace extended to him by a loving church family.

Only God knows the human heart, and He extends grace to all who repent and seek forgiveness for their sin. I do not believe our brother had sinned. The Biblical definition of sinning is “the willful rebellion and rejection of God and His law”. Instead his need of grace was due to some errors in judgment which he genuinely acknowledged and repented of.

Who among us does not need God’s grace on a daily basis, and for grace to be extended to us by our church family from time to time. Sometimes our actions have been hidden from all human eyes and only God knows our need for grace. Sometimes our actions are public, and when that happens we need the grace that only a loving church family can give.

As a church family, we have reached out to him, some with simple declarations of love and support, some with handwritten notes of their love, and the assurance of prayer, but all with the full knowledge that not one of us is any better than the other, that we all have sinned from time to time, that we all have made mistakes in judgment, that we all have failed the Lord and each other many times in this daily journey we call the Christian life.

And so we extended this amazing, marvelous grace which we received from the Lord back to the brother we love so much because we know……someday…..inevitably….we will need him and others to extend it to us.