Sunday night on the way home from worship, Michael and I were talking about different spiritual matters. Our thoughts came to the preachers the church at Bartlett supports and their support letters.
Many of you know that those letters are now on the church's website - easy to access - if you want to. Strangely enough, lately I had been thinking about these letters and how I should be reading them. To be honest, and I'm ashamed to say, I just have not done so on a regular basis in the past.
As we were talking about these letters our thoughts went to the New Testament Christians and the letters that circulated through their churches. Don't you imagine they were really excited to get a letter from Paul? I would hope they all read his letters several times - we certainly devour them today.
So why haven't I ever felt compelled to dig into these support letters? Why haven't I reached out to these preachers and their families on a regular basis? The church at Bartlett supports these men. Part of my family's weekly contribution goes to these men, and they take the time to write us and let us know what joys and trials they are facing in their work. I guess I had just kept them out of "my circle of influence." But, that was a failing on my part.
So, yesterday morning I woke up and checked my email and Facebook like I always do. Then I logged on to the church website and read a couple of letters. One of the first was from Alessandro Corrazzo in Italy.
The letter was a couple of months old, but he kindly mentioned people he had been studying with by name and told of some of the efforts the church there was involved with. Then I noticed his email address was on the letter. So, I thought, "I message people on Facebook all the time, why don't I send him a short email about his letter and thank him for what he is doing." It was really a very small thing and only took a few minutes to introduce myself in the email, talk about what he had written, and share a little about the church here.
Well, this morning, I woke up and did the same thing. As I was reading the letter from Joe Price in Bellingham, Washington, my email account "dinged." Of course, I immediately clicked over to see who it was from. :) It was an email from Brother Corazzo. He had already written me back.
I read the email through tears. He told me of the history of the his involvement in the church there - He's 82 and was baptized in 1949. He talked about translating commentaries and the devastating impact institutional thinking has had on the church there. He also mentioned cancer. It was hard for me to know if he was talking about himself or someone else. (If you know if he has cancer, please let me know.)
As he closed he told me that he would share more of his memories of their "60 years of Christian life" with me - "given time and if I will." I couldn't believe the result of one short email.
What a blessing that short email turned out to be. Maybe you regularly read these support letters and communicate with the preachers and their families. I hope you do and that this is something I've just been slow to grow into. But, if you don't, please start. It really is an easy way that we can be more like the New Testament Christians.
Brother Corazzo closed his email with the sentiment below for the Christians at Bartlett. Please remember him and the other preachers we support by name in your daily prayers and take time to share your love with them as he has with us.
"For now, please, give our love to the brethren there, asking them to remember us in their prayers as we will do for them in ours."
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