Pastor Joe Bell

December 11

2008-12-11T04:53:00.001-08:00

Today is a special day for me- my Mother’s birthday. Dad taught me to have courage, and to give respect and love to others, and to have honor. Mom showed me a life hidden in Christ, and taught me to love God passionately and to do the common everyday things I need to do each day. Gone for 8 and 10 years, I still miss them every week, if not every day. Love your friends and family, care for those God puts in your path, and rejoice that you have been given this day with them!

The B-I-B-L-E- Is that the book for me?

2008-12-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

Our adults were working on studying the Bible in Sunday School (part of our Celebration of Discipline series).
How much of your time each week is spent studying the Bible?
Pastors, sermon preparation doesn’t count.
I’m talking about studying to know Christ, studying to show yourself approved, as scripture says.
So do me a favor- send back your answers.
I’ll compile them anonymously and let you know what I hear.
Also, feel free to check out my blog at http://joe2355.blogspot.com/

Are you ready for Christmas?

2008-12-04T09:50:00.000-08:00

I am asked that at least every other day this month. This morning, while Jaysha cleaned my teeth, I found my answer.
Yes, I am ready for Christmas. No, I haven’t done all my shopping. No, I won’t be out looking for gifts at the last minute. Yes, I will have a Merry Christmas!
Can you say that? I think there are four parts to being ready for Christmas:
1. Say yes to Jesus- without the Savior, there is no Christmas. And let’s face it, you’ve been doing great running your life, right?
2. Say no to Madison Avenue. You DO NOT need to buy things people don’t need to say you gave them a gift.
3. Say Yes to relationships. Your family wants you, not stuff, unless you’ve totally corrupted them. And you can fix that still! You do not need to spend money on your children for them to know love. You do not need to send or give things to avoid guilt or make up for a lack of relationship- just fix the relationship! Why don’t you give time this year- time, activities, doing things for people. Stuff is SO OVERRATED!
4. Say yes to celebration and thanksgiving (there’s a reason it comes before the party season!). See or hear the Messiah. Go to a Christmas play. Sing Carols at a nursing home. Call your family. Celebrate the life given by Christ, not the sack of presents falsely promised by the world!
4a. Why don’t you take part of what you’re not spending on stupid gifts and give food, shelter, clothing or water to the needy? See me for details- you could change the world while letting God cure you of materialism!
Are you ready for Christmas?

There It Was

2008-11-25T14:01:00.001-08:00

It just stared at me. I used it, I went by and over it, I ignored it. But I had made a choice, so I had to face it- my floor.
I have made two decisions in these days with people important to me. I am giving up chocolate- which, more than any other food, has controlled me, as I support friends who are breaking habits with God’s help. The second is to exercise and lose weight, as I support my son in growing strong in Christ.
But both of these decisions are made not just in public, but in private. No one but God and I actually know if I exercise or avoid all chocolate. So I have to, daily, commit to making those choices part of who I am and what I do. So I face the floor, and my exercise, each day.
And every day I choose right instead of easy strengthens me, and every day I choose ease or comfort instead of strength weakens me. I am a disciple, and the choice I made makes the choices I make each day which make me the man God wants me to be. No one but we and God know if we are living the life all the time. But the choice we made makes the decisions we make and those decisions make the person we will be.
May God bless you with light, strength and power to let the choice you made in Christ make you through the Christ-like choice you make today.

Nicole

2008-11-25T13:55:00.000-08:00

A friend was born today. She came to our church with her sister, and they ended up bringing her entire family. She was having trouble- she had trouble the whole time she was with us. But she was trying to do what was right.
Jordan was our first out-of-wedlock birth while I was pastor. He’s just about Stephen’s age. We just loved them. We became part of their lives, and they of ours.
Over time, Nicole continued to make rough choices- we tried to keep in touch, but, like others, she drifted out.
Then one night I got a call from her sister. She was missing. That Sunday they found her body. He was never convicted. Their family, fragmented before that, was torn in hard ways over that. None of them are in our church today- I pray that they are in the faith.
So today I pray for those who have been in and out of my life. And I pray that I will say and do the right things to prevent her end from becoming theirs. I pray that Christ’s light in my life will not only illuminate, but change.
Are you being light where you are? Is your life enough like Christ that others will not just be drawn in, but be changed? Are you making disciples, or simply showing up?

Fireproof

2008-11-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

After a month, I finally went to see the movie with my wife Saturday.
Good stuff! It was too close to life soemtimes! We have had discussions,a nd will have more.
I also bought The Love Dare book. We'll look at and use it as a church in February.

How to make a difference- and will we ever?

2008-10-23T05:33:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend told me about the cost of the AIG bailout. According to the math he was given, if we took the amount of money used to bail out AIG and gave it to all those in this country 18 and over, each person would get $278,000. I think that would be a better use of the money personally.

This morning, Matt & Carol on WMIT (106.9 in most of NC) suggested that candidates (or one candidate) give up the rest of their advertising budget to actually help individuals in need. I KNOW that would change my mind about their desire to really change things.

I really believe that less government would be better for more people.

But as a believer, the question comes down to me.

Will I actually change the money I spend, and the things I do, to make a difference? Or will I follow the bad example of our government and throw more money, time and energy at less useful things?
What if we rediscovered the joy of Jesus, of Francis, the delight of a child (and our very creative God) and tried to do things that just made Kingdom sense with our time, energy and talent? What if we tried to change the world, as agents of God's love, every day?
Now that's a cause I believe in- and it will change the world much mroe than whoever takes office in January!

Who are you voting for, and why?

2008-10-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

I will say, from the start, that I have biases. My parents voted Republican in state and federal politics most of my life. My father and two brothers-in-law served in the military during wartime. We were never upper class- in fact my father's family was lower class, living in a mill town and working in a steel mill. But I grew up with the belief that freedom was what my family and millions of others had fought to preserve, and that part of that fight was electing people who would preserve it.
I am also a Christian. And while I have brothers and sisters in Christ (and my family) who disagree with me, there are things I feel we should always stand for as those who follow Christ. I feel that I should stand for life, born or unborn, young or old. I feel that I should stand for justice and freedom for all people.
I feel that part of my job as a Christian man is to help the helpless and weak, to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and to provide for all as God allows me. But I believe that lies within the role of the government to help the common good, not to provide for each individual's needs. The individuals are to be helped, and helped to Christ, by the Church. That is the only antidote to the ills of society.

So I come to this election. Here is the choice that I see.
We have two senators, each of whom has had a part in the tremendous increase of government in the last few years. I think both of them really want to help the country.
Both claim to have faith, but have not practiced what I would call a strong faith- in terms of participation, submission to Christ, and a life that seems led by scripture and faith.
Faith's not a requirement- although it makes me more comfortable with a candidate-but honesty is. Both, and perhaps every major candidate in these days in America, have made compromises that I find distasteful, and perhaps they do. But they have "friends", recent or past, who are not friends to the country.
Both say they want to fix the health care system. But neither has valid answers to the biggest problems- the unemployed and employed who cannot get insurance on the job.
- In my opinion, we need to separate employment from insurance- make health care a commodity again- then the care will be driven by the market, not insurance. We might find many things affordable if we didn't believe that EVERY treatment option was the RIGHT of every citizen. But I don't rise or fall on my idea.
So on to differences-
In alphabetical order, I approach Mr. McCain first. He has been a republican, but has often gone against his party, sometimes when I felt they were right, not he. His pro-life record has been spotty, and his support for embryonic research has gone against what I believe.
Economically, he seems to believe that the people should have their money. But he is also funded in part by those who would abuse the people by gaining inordinate wealth for themselves.
But he has voted repeatedly to limit government- from judges who interpret the law instead of making it to reforming the grossly bloated election finance process.
And here's another less-than-unanimous opinion. I haven't agreed with everything that has happened in Iraq. But I believe we should defend those who cannot defend themselves, and for that reason, WMD aside, we needed to stop Hussein. I would do it again, 100 times, to protect people that are being killed by their own government, whoever was or was not with us on it. (See Rwanda).
The other shoe there, as Obama has repeatedly said, is that the group that planned the 9/11 attacks is in Afghanistan. If you read, or saw, Charlie Wilson's War, you know that we could have spent a fraction of what we have in Afghanistan in that country in the 80s and probably have prevented the attacks and growth of Al-Qaeda.
Oddly, I find his military service a non-issue. My father would say that everyone should do what they can in a war- McCain did nothing more than many of his peers- he just went into politics afterwards.
But I don't like him, don't trust him, and I am not pleased with McCain as a candidate.

The other senator is a skilled orator, our first serious black candidate (a real plus in light of our terrible record in allowing minorities a voice in government), and an intelligent, articulate man. He sounds nice, thoughtful, caring and desiring the best for every citizen. I like him better than McCain.
But when you look at his record, first in state and then in federal government, some frightening things come to light. He almost by himself kept Illinois from passing legislation to prevent horrible late-term abortions in a number of legislative sessions. He consistently voted against any restrictions on abortion or fetal experimentation. He consistently sided with those wanting more government control and less freedom.
Judicially he favored those who would "fight for justice," making policy and law from the bench as opposed to interpreting the laws as our system says judges should. I don't always agree with his ideas of what is just and right- but I'm not trying to get courts to overturn valid legislation to get my viewpoint commended.
Fiscally, he has favored bigger government and more control of businesses and individuals. I still haven't seen that work well. Ever.
And he has NO foreign policy experience, and some really scary ideas (there are people we shouldn't interact with as a government until they decide to commit themselves to helping- just like we did with the PLO- talking to those who harm us or others as a matter of policy is not right).
So I like him. But I REALLY, REALLY don't want him nominating judges, running our foreign policy and trying to get his social and fiscal agenda through congress for the next four years.
I will vote for McCain. Not happily, but definitely. Maybe Rice or Powell will run in 4 years...

Politics & Government- Freedom vs. Dependence

2008-10-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Warning- this is not unbiased. As a human being, I have opinions about how government should and does work- and if truth be told, so does everyone else, regardless of any protests otherwise.

At its most basic, politics is the interaction of people with each other. It is communication. You have friendships, perhaps enemies, opinions, things you want others to do, and things you want done, or not done, to, with or for you.

The United States was started as a confederacy- a loose alliance of states, each independent and each with rights that trumped the central government. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to overcome the international strength of the European powers, so the government had to be redefined to better provide for- and this was the extent of the federal government- common defense, the general welfare- the good of all the people as a whole-, and to ensure liberty. If you read the constitution carefully, you will see that time and again the founders, broken of a need for large government by Europe, gave power to the states and the people.

But power corrupts, and power seeks more power. So the government kept growing until it had to find a way to fund itself. Then the federal government decide that they should have the power to collect taxes (the people who argue that this is unconstitutional are correct, but understand, the government today does MANY things that are unconstitutional). When they became able to collect taxes, Pandora's box was open. Taxes increased, governmental control increased, and to offset that government told people that they would be taken care of. What they promised was nice, but the cost, and ultimate price, was and is our freedom and our ability to provide for ourselves. Until sometime in late spring we are working, each one of us, to provide for the government. Don't think if you get a refund that taxes are someone else's problem. You pay more for goods and services, and earn less, because of taxes- even those you don't see.

This push for power was also aided greatly by the civil war. Whatever your feelings, understand that the war was not about slavery- that was a contributing factor. The civil war was about the right of the states to leave the government. The states lost, and governmental power grew.

This push for power was also aided in the last century by the change to government providing for those without from charities and individuals helping those in need. Once we believed that the government could and should help those in need, we gave a tremendous blank check to government. Now they had a reason to ask for more of our income because they were doing something we wanted done but didn't want to sacrifice to do. So government promised to help those in need and we paid taxes.

Note that this is a promise that has never been fulfilled- government has taken a large part of what we put in for overhead, and has set up an endlessly repeating cycle of dependence among those "helped," providing (oddly, just as many slaveholders had in the prior century) just enough to keep those "provided" for from going to do something on their own about their situation. That dependence is in fact the exact opposite of freedom. Wherever you see that in history, you will see a crumbling nation, from Rome to Russia, with people losing self-will and motivation to strive, grow and improve.

So, with a 200+ year history of a nation tending toward bigger government and less freedom, we come to this year's election. More on the in the next post.

For now, aren't you afraid of giving your money to others instead of doing as God leads you to do with it? What has more government fixed? What part of our society is the most wasteful, the most unaccountable, the most corrupt? No industry or company holds a candle to our federal government when it comes to waste, fraud, greed or corruption. How will giving them control of something else or more help us? Don't you trust yourself more than the government?

Here we go!

2008-10-17T19:16:00.001-07:00

I am a mixture of many things- Pastor, thinker, competitor, laugher, lover, teacher, sinner, saint.
At my best, I change lives by loving people.
At my worst, I frustrate people by wanting changed lives.
So who am I? And who will I be?
I am a sinner saved by God's grace, called to live a life that makes a difference.
I am a man raised in a lower middle class first high-school generation family in the south, proud of his family and roots, who knows that others look down on his home, his family and his place in society.
I am a Christian, dedicated to following Jesus.
I am a husband and father, at times shocked by the wonder of his family, at times afraid he's messing it up, at times without understanding of his wife or kids.
I am a caregiver, a guide, a walker-beside.
I am Joe Bell. Starting tomorrow, watch out- I will be going!

Hi! Are you strapped in?

2008-08-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. It will go where I go, as I go- so if it gets too fast, just read slower!
My name is Joe Bell. My personal web page (with family, history, etc.) is at www.JoeBell.org . Suffice to say, I have been married to a wonderful woman, Teresa Ann Smith Bell, for 19 years, and have a neat almost 11 year-old son and a surprising almost 3 year-old daughter. The three of them are my first job and biggest blessing.
I am a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene, and currently am serving in my 12th year at Eastside Church of the Nazarenein Gastonia, NC. We are a small 23 year-old church that has not grown in a great location in a growing community. We are a wide mix of people by personality, race, education, social graces and Christian experience. God and our church is for many our only contact- and it’s my job to improve on that.
Our church is at a crossroads (we might have been sitting on it for a few years, but didn’t see it through what we had at the time). We need to revitalize our church and ministry if we are to continue to exist. So that is what I am about.
We will be spending September in prayer. I am suggesting that everyone read With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray for September, and we will be delving into E. M. Bound’s works on prayer on Wednesday evenings. Sometime in October or November, we will have an Encounter weekend to begin our people on the journey of being disciplemakers who build disciples of Christ. That is what we will rise or fall doing- for that is what Jesus commanded those who would follow him.
Right now I also spend about 20 hours a week serving as a chaplain at Gaston Memorial Hospitalin Gastonia (it will go up about 10 when I begin Clinical Pastoral Education in September). I starting my second unit of Clinical Pastoral Education in September. It will be Thursday and Friday afternoons at GMH, which will save about 3 hours (plus clinical time) over my last unit, which was at CMC.
And in November, we have fall YMCA Flag football, which I coach my son in.
Add to all that my very serious interest in many different things in life, from politics to sports to books, movies, TV and people, and you are likely to find just about anything here. So hang on and enjoy!