HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-04-30, Page 12PAGE 12. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2015.
By Pastor Gary van Leeuwen
Blyth Christian Reformed
Church
I have the privilege of being
involved, in a small way, in the new
community garden that is being built
in the yard of the former Blyth
Public School. From the plans I have
seen the garden will be both
beautiful and functional. In some of
my conversations with others about
gardens, I have learned that many of
the younger generation in our
community do not know how to
plant a garden or how to harvest and
use the produce from the garden.
Perhaps that is one unintended and
negative result of living in a place
where we can buy fresh produce
easily and cheaply on almost any
day of the year. Many of the younger
generation do not know much about
gardening.
My own children are a prime
example. My parents, even today,
have a rather large garden, and when
I was a kid I spent many hours
planting, pulling weeds and picking
beans. Although I do not have a
garden myself, I am sure that if you
placed me in front of a plot of land
and gave me the tools and seeds, I
could probably feed myself and my
family for the coming winter. But
give my children the same resources,
and they would struggle. Yes, they
could turn to YouTube or they could
buy a book and learn all about
gardens, but they do not have that
inherent gardening knowledge that I
gained from actually doing the work.
It is one of the goals of the garden
planners to use the garden as a
teaching tool. Not only will the
community garden provide food for
those in need, but we hope that the
garden will also become a means to
teach our younger generation how to
prepare a delicious meal from a few
packages of seeds. To do this, of
course, we will need people who
know all about gardening and who
are willing to share their
experiences. And, it goes without
saying, we will need willing
learners.
If everything goes as planned, the
wonderful knowledge that our older
generation has stored up over the
years will be passed along to the
younger generation.
As I reflect on what we hope the
garden will provide for our
community, I am struck by how easy
it is to lose skills and knowledge as
our older generation passes on. The
things they learned from their
parents who learned them from their
parents can be lost in one generation.
Knowledge that has been passed
down for centuries can disappear in
a matter of 50 years.
The same can be said about our
faith. A few years ago I was waiting
for a friend in the religion
department of a major university. As
I waited a class was let out, and I
overheard a conversation between
two students who, by their
appearance, could well have been
born and raised in Blyth. It sounded
to me like their class covered a
variety of world religions, and they
had just begun to study Christianity.
One of the students said to the other,
“I didn’t realize that the Bible
doesn’t mention Jesus until the very
end.” (For those who are unaware of
the contents of the Bible, Jesus is not
mentioned until the last quarter of
the Bible.) I am quite certain that
those two students, somewhere in
their past, had ancestors who
regularly attended church. Those
ancestors may even have been their
grandparents, or, perhaps, their
parents. But those students, who
would now be in their thirties,
had never cracked open a
Bible. They didn’t know even
the most basic facts about
Christianity.
Now, some of you who are reading
this may well say that there is no
problem with a lack of knowledge
about the Bible. But you can only
say that if you have studied the Bible
and know what it says. There are
probably people in this community
who say that there is no point to
learn how to garden. Of course you
might say that if you have never
tasted a tomato fresh from the
garden. If all you are used to are
greenhouse tomatoes, you don’t
really have the right to say there is
no advantage to having a garden.
The same is true of the Christian
faith. If you don’t know what the
Christian faith is about, if you can’t
articulate its central teachings, then
you don’t really have a right to say
that it isn’t worth passing on to our
children.
From my perspective, the
Christian faith is about a God who
loves us and cares for us. The
Christian faith, as it is given to us
through the teachings of the Bible,
identifies the problem in this world
to be that of human rebelliousness
against the God who provides. The
problem is about broken
relationships and a broken world. It
is also about a God who seeks to be
reconciled with a rebellious
humanity, and he begins that process
of reconciliation by sending his own
Son to this world. It is about that
Son dying on a cross to mend what
was broken, and it is about him
being resurrected to make new life
possible for us. It is about a future in
a renewed creation which has no end
and in which there is no longer any
trouble or sorrow. The Christian
faith is about knowing that God
cares for us.
And, for me, that is something
worth passing on. Other worldviews,
to me, seem as bland as a tomato
shipped green from California and
left to ripen in a box. My experience
with the Christian faith, a faith
centred in Jesus Christ, has been as
invigorating as eating fresh produce
from a garden. Knowing that God
loves me and cares for me is far
more wonderful than thinking I need
to take care of myself.
THE CATHOLIC PARISHES OF NORTH HURON AND NORTH PERTH
CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO ATTEND HOLY MASS.
OUR SUNDAY LITURGIES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Brussels:
St. Ambrose
Saturday
6:00 p.m.
17 Flora Street
Wingham:
Sacred Heart
Sunday
9:00 a.m.
220 Carling Terrace
Listowel:
St. Joseph’s
Sunday
11:00 a.m.
1025 Wallace Avenue N.
CORNER OF DINSLEY & MILL STREETS
MINISTER
Rev. Gary Clark, BA, M. Div.
All Welcome
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Floyd Herman, BA, M. Ed.OFFICE: 519-523-4224
Sunday, May 3 ~ “Choose your Username”
Sunday, May 10 ~ “Mother’s Day Service”
Worship Service & Sunday School at 11 a.m.
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Floyd Herman, BA, M. Ed.
Children
Welcome
getlivingwater.org
Living Water
Christian Fellowship
10:30 a.m. ~ Worship & Sunday School
at 308 Blyth Rd. (former Church of God)
Pastor: Ernest Dow ~ 519-523-4848
Sunday, May 3 ~ John 5:1-18
Evangelical Missionary Church
Small Groups Weekly in Blyth & Wingham
“Kill -- or
Cure?”
Sat. May 2, 8:30 am at Heartland EMC
Clinton: ABC Ladies Spring Breakfast
Mon. May 4, 7:00 pm at Blyth United:
Community Conflict Resolution
Youre Invited
to come worship
with us
Sunday, May 3
Brussels Business & Cultural Centre
at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday School for children
4 to 12 years of age at 9:30 a.m.
Childcare provided for infants and
preschoolers during the sermon.
Coffee & cookies after the morning service
For additional details please contact Pastor Andrew Versteeg 519.887.8621
Steve Klumpenhower 519.887.8651 Rick Packer 519.527.0173
The Huron Chap el
PRAYER
6:00pm This Sunday, May 3rd
Is there anywhere around here where a 100 plus people
both young and old will still gather for prayer? Yep.
huronchapel.com
MELVILLE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
BRUSSELS
Rev. Elwin Garland
SUNDAY, MAY 3
Nursery care available
519-887-9017
Worship & Sunday School - 10 am
Coffee & Snacks - 11 am
We invite you to join our church family in:
Fridays 11:30 am - 1:00 pm ~ Soup & More 2
- a free community meal held in Melville’s basement, and
made possible by the Brussels churches working together.
SUNDAYS
Morning Service 10:00 am
Evening Service 7:30 pm
Hwy. 4, Blyth www.blythcrc.ca 519-523-4743
Minister: Pastor Gary van Leeuwen
You’re Invited To Join Us In Worship
BLYTH CHRISTIAN
REFORMED CHURCH
BRUSSELS
WORSHIP SERVICE
AND SUNDAY SCHOOL 10:00 am
All Welcome
United Church
Minister: Rev. Gary Clark, BA, M.Div.
Bulletin notices: 519-523-4224
blythunited@tcc.on.ca
Church bookings: 519-887-6377
Other concerns: 226-963-1175
From the Minister’s Study
Transference through generations, new and old