March 30, 2008

News Flash . . .

Mrs. Barnell Floyd Richardson, wife of the Rev. Mr. David Richardson, Sr. and pastor of Holy Trinity Pentecostal Holiness Church in Andrews, SC, died today, March 30, 2008, at 9 a. m. after a long illness.

Barnell died in the Intensive Care Unit at the Piedmont Newnan Hospital in Newnan, GA. She was given the finest of medical care and love by the professional nursing staff and doctors.

All of us have prayed for her healing. Now she is released from her mortal body, and is in the presence of the Lord forever. She has received her complete healing, and one day will have a new body. Now, she is free from all pain and suffering.

I am grateful to Cathy Skipper for sending me the obituary for Barnell:

ANDREWS, SC: Barnell Floyd Richardson, 66, of Andrews, S.C., went to be with the Lord Sunday, March 30, 2008.

She ministered with her husband, the Rev. Mr. David R. Richardson Sr., for over 42 years in the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. Together they served the Holy Trinity Pentecostal Holiness Church in Andrews, in the community of Puncheon Creek, for the past 19 years. Barnell was a director of Day Care ministries, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten education in Tennessee and Florida. She served as executive secretary to the Secretary of the Sonshine Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, prior to moving back to South Carolina. She served as financial secretary to the Holy Trinity Pentecostal Holiness Church for 14 years.

Barnell was born January 16, 1942 in Lake City, South Carolina, to the late Barney and Etta Coker Floyd. She was one of seven of the Floyd children, raised on a small farm.

Barnell attended the Barrineau Pentecostal Holiness Church throughout her youth. She was a 1960 graduate of Olanta High School and attended Emmanuel College and Columbia Commercial College. She worked as a payroll clerk and an insurance underwriter before her marriage.

Barnell is survived by her husband, who continues to pastor in Andrews; their son, the Rev. Mr. David R. Richardson Jr., Church Education Ministries Director of the Upper S.C. Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, and his wife, Traci (Beadles); and ''the joy of her life,'' her grandchildren, Kalie Jo Richardson and Jaret David Richardson, of Pelzer; three brothers, Henry B. Floyd, of Sumter, Dr. Chester Floyd of Monks Corner, and Dr. Billy K. Floyd of Cayce; and three sisters, Della Hancock of Stedman, N.C., Ivene Weaver of Sumter, and JoAnn Floyd of Kingstree. She is dearly loved by scores of nieces and nephews, grand and great-grand as well, whom she always remembered on their birthday with a card and a five dollar bill.

Visitation will be from 6 until 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at Holy Trinity Pentecostal Holiness Church, 11407 Gapway Road, Andrews.

The funeral service will be held 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, 2008 in the Barrineau Pentecostal Holiness Church, Lake City, with visitation prior to the service, from noon until 1:30 p.m., at the church.

Officiating will be the Rev. Mr. David R. Richardson Jr., Pastor Bobby Floyd, and Bishop James McKenzie. 

The McKenzie Funeral Home in Andrews, SC, will be in charge of the funeral. For those who would like to send flowers, contact Ivey Basket Florist in Andrews, SC, at 843-264-5408.

Let us pray for Pastor David Richardson, Sr., and their son, the Rev. Mr. David Richardson, Jr., and his family. 

      & Commentary

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News at a Glance . . .

Lighten up with Laughter

Sermon, "Christ Give Peace and Power" by Pastor James R. Pennington

Julia Payne, mother of Hugh H. Morgan, a former missionary to Hong Kong was inducted into the Hong Kong Hall of Fame of American Missionaries at the Centennial Celebration in Hong Kong November 2007

LCMDR Mar McDowell, Chaplain, USN is serving God and Country with the Multinational Corps at the Joint Operations Center at Camp Victory, Iraq

Will you receive the Benediction?

Stand by for Today's News . . .

Lighten up with Laughter

I normally do not forward anything or send links to other things. I may have to make an exception. Dr. Ronald W. Carpenter, Sr., who is my boss and Chairman, Chaplains Ministries, IPHC Board, as well as the Executive Director of Evangelism USA, and Vice Chairman of the IPHC, sent me a website address that is too good not to share with you.

Here is what I wrote Dr. Carpenter in my response to his e-mail:

"Dr. Carpenter, you and I have been blessed to have been raised in a Christian home and a Pentecostal Holiness Church environment. What we have been exposed to and what we have embraced have given us an inner peace -- peace with God and the peace of God.

"I watched all of the songs:

Let me tell you that your are about to see the most beautiful Chinese girl in the known world who can sing, carry a tune, and who doesn't miss a word. She is amazing and adorable. She will capture your heart and grab all the strings of your emotions. You will laugh and cry, and rejoice.

You must know that my love for Chinese people and all Orientals is deep within my DNA. I get it from my mother, Julia Payne, who was a missionary to Hong Kong and Pakkoi, China, 1920-1929. I am a miracle to have been born when my mother was 43. She had given birth to my sister 2 years and 9 months before I was born. The doctor told her that she could not have any more children. But, God has the final Word on all of us. So, here I am with all my faults and failures. But, I can tell you that I love Jesus, and I know He loves me, too. I am a child of the King. He is my Savior and Lord. I am not ashamed of Him.

It is my opinion you will see for yourself the value of teaching children to sing even while in the womb. Children can learn and these several videos should encourage every mother and father, and school teacher to invest their time in children. Let me share with you one Scripture to encourage you. This is God's Word:

Deuteronomy 11:18-21 18

"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth." NIV 

What great instructions from God's Word. Did you notice the promise that goes with teaching your children?

Now for the website:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR4PQ30VkBk

You may have to scroll and paste it on your browser.

Sermon, "Christ Gives Peace and Power" by Pastor James R. Pennington

"Christ Gives Peace and Power"

by Pastor James R. Pennington 

John 20:19-31

Second Sunday of Easter, March 30, 2008

Gone is the stirring contrast between the somber sanctuary of Good Friday and beautifully arrayed altar of Easter Day. Gone is the aroma of lilies. Gone is the joyful sound of resurrection hymns that tingled our spines. Gone is the exciting expectation with which we awaited the good news after forty days of preparation. Today it is as if Easter has not come.

Indeed, we feel as though we are right back where we were, fighting familiar frustrations and bearing well-known burdens. This is precisely why we need to grasp the message of the Second Sunday of Easter. It parallels and supports that of the resurrection. It assures us that Christ gives peace and power to the incapacitated.

In the Gospel appointed for this day, John 20:19-31, we first see Christ giving peace to helpless and defeated people. 

It was late on the day of resurrection.  Long since the women had reported the empty tomb.  Peter and John had run to the grave and returned with verification of the women’s report.  But the disciples still hid.  Perhaps, they were incapacitated by the prospect of facing those who had remained faithful.  Or, they might have been attempting to hide from themselves.  Perhaps they were like Adam, unable to face the betrayed God.

Suddenly the perplexity of this demoralized group was broken.  Christ was in the midst of them saying, Shalom, “Peace be with you!”  After He said that He showed them His credentials of the “Crucified,” His hands and side.  The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord” (John 20:19-20).  The word Shalom is often used for a very common greeting, it can be used to say “Hello,” but there is more to it than that.  It was a serious greeting and was always related in some measure to the thought of peace being God’s gift, and is therefore much more closely paralleled in English by the wish, “God bless you."

In the New Testament the thought of God’s giving peace to men is always connected with what Jesus accomplished by his death and resurrection.

In the Book of Romans Paul writes of peace as one of the results of our justification: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus” (Romans 5:1). It is certainly in this sense that Jesus uses the word in His greeting to the assembled group of disciples. He had gone to the cross. He had been raised from the dead. Now, as the result of what He had accomplished, He was dispensing real peace to those who believed on Him.

What is peace? One definition applies the word to a relationship between countries, calling it “an agreement to end hostilities.” Another calls it “public order.” A third definition calls peace “ harmony in personal relations.” None of these definitions, good as they are, does justice to what Jesus meant when He offered peace to men. When Jesus spoke of peace to his disciples He was speaking, first of all, of peace with God. This is the peace bought by His suffering on the cross, and it is significant because of the fact that people are not at peace with God naturally. According to the Bible men are at war with God. They are opposed to Him. Consequently, it was up to God to make peace through Christ’s cross. If you want peace, you must receive it in the way God provided it. Jesus died to make peace. If you are gong to enter into God’s peace, it must be by faith in Jesus Christ, and what He has done. When we do this God will receive us with smiles and makes us His daughters and sons. And, so Christ still gives power to the powerless.

There are many Gifts: We must not think that when Jesus spoke of peace to the disciples he was listing all the benefits of His death for them. This was only one of many gifts, which are the result of His death and resurrection. One of the additional gifts is access to the presence of God through prayer (Romans 5:2). There are often difficulties in life. You may be experiencing some. There are upsetting events, the death of a relative or friend, the loss of a job leaving you without a sure future, the sting of failure, the loss of friends. Now listen, this is important; if we did not fail, we would never make any progress. Failure demands that we assess our past methods to see what we have done right or wrong. Failure helps us discard the moribund and obsolete and open us to new ideas.

Christianity, from Golgotha onwards, has been the sanctification of failure.

Peter, the great rock, rose from the rock heap of failure. Our failures bring us face to face with the weaknesses and inadequacies that lie within, so that God’s strength can be made perfect in our weakness.

Here is an excellent story. Once a fine young man, a sergeant, failed in the face of the enemy. He was court-martialed and punished. His captain said to his lieutenant, “We must show the lad that we continue to trust him, or he will go to pieces.” The two soldiers stuck by the sergeant, never alluding to the unhappy event but always treating him with the old respect and friendliness. A few weeks later when the company was in a tight situation, the captain put the sergeant in charge of the same group he had been with when he failed. In a few days of grim fighting the lad won honor after honor and a promotion for gallantry in the field. “What else could I do,” he said to the lieutenant. “I had failed him; he trusted me, he encouraged me. I could not fail him again.”

“We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). It is in the breaking of these clay vessels, our failures, that the riches of God are exposed for all to see. It is primarily our failures that create in us a poverty of spirit and thus make us fit receptacles for the blessings of the kingdom of God. That is why “Christianity, from Golgotha onwards, has been the sanctification of failure.”

We live out a tragedy of the greatest proportions when we will not even admit to ourselves that we have failed, whether it be in devotion to God, in relation to one another, or in our calling to serve. One of the great faults of the church and many Christian organizations are saying souls are being saved when they are not. Asserting our effectiveness though we are effete, making claims for a ministry when we should be lamenting its failure, loudly proclaiming our effect on the world when the world does not even know we exist. The creative processes of the Holy Spirit, God’s power in our lives, become fully operable when we admit exactly where we are; owning our successes and our failures. 

We have failed Christ; often, wretchedly, without excuse. Repeatedly we are as defeated and dejected as the young lad. But even then Christ gives us peace and power. He calls us again and breathes the Holy Spirit into us.

Fundamental to living productively in this age is a honesty with ourselves and with God.

In the darkness, “It is the Lord!”

In our failures, “it is the Lord!”

When everything is going well, “It is the Lord!”

In all of life, “It is the lord!” teaching us that we must rest and depend on Him.  

[Editor's note: I have known Pastor James R. Pennington for more than 33 years. He is a gifted writer, speaker, preacher, pastor, administrator, and church leader. I always enjoy reading the manuscripts of his sermons. It is refreshing to me when a pastor follows the church calendar in his preaching. It forces him to deal with Scriptural texts that are sometimes difficult and ones that he might avoid otherwise.

Pastor Pennington proclaims the whole counsel of God. Paul said, "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:17,KJV ). 

I asked him for permission to print his sermon in Hugh's News and he graciously consented. I believe you will find it valuable as I have.

I have heard Brother Pennington preach with great anointing in years gone by in camp meetings and other church events. He is always refreshing and presents the truth of the Gospel in language one can readily understand. I received this sermon manuscript today, and it touched my life at a time of need in my own life. I wanted to share it with you. I consider Jim a dear Christian brother and a loyal and trusted friend. He and Theda reside in New Jersey, but pastor a church in New York City. He and Theda have not been forgotten by me. I pray that God will so use this printed sermon to touch your life today as it did mine.]

Julia Payne, mother of Hugh H. Morgan, a former missionary to Hong Kong was inducted into the Hong Kong Hall of Fame of American Missionaries at the Centennial Celebration in Hong Kong November 2007

Had I not read the most recent IPHC Experience magazine, April 2008, I may have never known that my mother, Julia Payne, was inducted into the "Hall of Fame" of IPHC missionaries who came to Hong Kong from America to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

My mother, Julia Payne, was a missionary to Hong Kong and Pakkoi, China, from 1920-1929. She and Laura Hylton helped plant the church in Pakkoi, on the Gulf of Tonkin, near Vietnam. That church not only survived Communism, but thrived. After the Bamboo Curtain failed, Princeton Cates told me that there were 500 Pentecostal Holiness Church members strong in that church. When he told me that, I cried for joy. I realized anew the keeping power that Jude wrote about in his New Testament letter.Here is what he said:

Jude 24-25

24 Now unto Him Who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen (KJV ).

In those days when my mother was a missionary, missionaries had to take a long journey by ship to Honk Kong. On the way from San Francisco to Honolulu, all of the missionaries got sea sick with the exception of Miss Julia Payne from Birmingham, AL. I read that statement in an old Advocate published in 1920, and written by G. F. Taylor, the editor. It was Dr. Tony Moon, a professor at Emmanuel College, who sent me a fax of that article. He was doing research and found it. I am grateful for that news. It means more to me than I can ever describe. I am indebted to Dr. Moon for the story.

On page 17, of IPHC Experience, is the article. Included in the list of Hall of Fame inductees, were the following missionaries:

Anna Deane, R. J. Semple, Anna Dean Cole, Jane Schermerhorn, the T. H. Rousseau family, the W. H. Turner family, Laura Hylton, Julia Payne, G. C. Legge, Ethel Strickland, and the Princeton Cates family.

I knew most of these missionaries by name, as my mother and father prayed for them daily during our family prayers at our devotional times. My life was enriched by knowing of them through the fervent prayers that were offered up to God in our home. Some of them, visited in our home when I was a boy and a teenager. My parents taught me to tithe and to give to World Missions. I have continued to tithe and give offering unto this day.

God has blessed my sister, Mary Evelyn Morgan McDuff, of Birmingham, Alabama, and me with a Godly heritage. We were privileged to grow up in a our parents' home, Hugh Henry and Julia Payne Morgan. My Dad was a bi-vocational pastor. They honored God, taught us the Word of God, and to love and serve Jesus. My mother got up early in the mornings to pray, read, and study her Bible. I remember her praying in the Spirit, i. e., in her devotional tongue (not English nor Cantonese Chinese).  I knew from her example that what she did was of God and that her experience was genuine and real. I wanted what she had. God somehow tenderized my heart to seek God for a deeper experience in my life and walk before Him.

I really wanted to be a missionary. I even suggested to God where He should call me to go. That call never came. However, God did call me to preach, and I am so glad I obeyed that call. I gave my heart and life to Jesus when I was six years old. I had the inner witness of the Holy Spirit that I was saved, and that my name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I became an instant evangelist, and went to every family in my neighborhood (we all had front porches, swings and chairs) and told them that I had invited Jesus in my heart  and that they could too. You have to know that I was a stutterer, and people had to have patience with me to speak. My memory is clear, but you know I don't think I stuttered when I gave my testimony to my neighbors.

God has allowed me to visit and minister twice in Cuba. I have traveled to Madrid, Spain, Rome Italy, London, England, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Israel, Costa Rica, Canada, Mexico, and a few other countries. God has blessed my life with His favor -- the Lord's assigned advantage. Now, I owe it to my people, the family of the IPHC as well as many friends, and the body of Christ worldwide to share what God has given to me through this newsletter called Hugh's News.

LCMDR Mar McDowell, Chaplain, USN is serving God and Country with the Multinational Corps at the Joint Operations Center at Camp Victory, Iraq

It all started on February 24, 2008,So, when Navy Chaplain Marc McDowell flew from Atlanta to Norfolk, where he spend a week with the Expeditionary Combat Readiness Command.  ECRC is the venue through which Navy Individual Augments are processed for deployment. That week involved the final confirmation of his medical and dental screenings for overseas duty, screening his legal and financial status, as well as prerequisite training and a battery of shots or vaccinations, and issuance of Army uniforms. The wearing of ACU's (Army Combat Uniforms) was indeed a switch for Marc. He has worn not only Navy officer uniforms, but has proudly worn Marine Corps uniforms. The Navy provides the most diversified and varied types of ministry than the Army or the Air Force. GO NAVY!

The next stop was Fort Jackson, Columbia, SC, for NIACT (Navy IndividualAugment Combat Training). Marc started with a group in Norfolk and shipped with them to this training at Fort Jackson all the way to Kuwait. NIACT involves weapons training, movement and maneuver, Army culturalization, introduction to Iraqi cultural concerns, etc. (This is not an official listing, only Marc's "nutshell" description.)  He will serve  as a battalion chaplain to the group where he will be assigned. He will not be included in the weapons training, so he will serve as a chaplain to them especially during that phase of the training. The group will together in open-bay barracks, etc., so there will be a certain closeness. Marc hopes he will have a good opportunity for ministry among those who are going to individual assignments to differing places within Iraq.

Then, there was the flight (as a group) to Kuwait, for more training, a week or two. Then the Individuals travel to the specific assigned units. Marc will be at the Multinational Corps, Iraq, in the Joint Operations Center as the point of contact for religious ministries concerns effecting all the military units in Iraq. He will share that position with a deployed USAF chaplain. Each ones does 12 hours a day so that there is a constant presence in the position. 

[Editor's Note: May I ask you to pray for Chaplain Marc McDowell and his family. His wife, Norma Gaye Ford McDowell, and their three teenage children reside in Bogart, GA, not far from where Melvine and I live.  Norma Gaye and their children will keep the home fires burning. They are Joanna, Jesse and Jarrod. Melvine and I stand ready to help them.]

Chaplain, Captain, William Jamie Braswell, USAF, to receive the MCA 2008 Distinguished Service Award on April 9, 2008

The Military Chaplains Association of the United States of America is pleased to announce that a member of your staff, Chaplain William Jamie Braswell, will receive our 2008 Distinguished Service Award.

First presented in 1991, this award recognizes "excellence in the practice of chaplaincy and professionalism in ministry." Each year since then, awardees from the Air Force, Army, Navy, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol are nominated by their respective Chief Chaplains or national Chaplain Service Directors.

Chaplain Braswell was nominated and selected from among his peers throughout the chaplains now serving with the Air Force Chaplain Service.

Our 2008 award presentation takes place at a banquet on Wednesday evening, 9 April 2008, Fort Jackson, SC Officer's Club, during our 83rd National Institute. We hope that Chaplain Braswell will be able to attend and receive his award alongside of those chaplains selected from the other services. However, if operational requirements or other obligations preclude his participation, we will make alternate arrangements to convey his award. 

[Editor's comment: It will be my honor and privilege to be present for this Distinguished Service Award that will be presented to Chaplain, Captain, William Jamie Braswell by the Military Chaplains Association of the United States. Jamie is married to the former Miss Sandra Starling of Virginia. They have two beautiful children, Preston and Abbie.

I will be there not only to support Chaplain Braswell with my presence, but to represent Dr. Ronald W. Carpenter, Sr., Chairman, Chaplains Ministries, IPHC Board, members of that board, and all of our IPHC chaplains in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. I am a member of MCA and I make it one of my top priorities to attend the annual conventions.]

Will you receive the Benediction?

This is Saturday night, March 29. I sense in my spirit that there is someone who may read this newsletter who feels abandoned by God, alone, and hopeless. God would have you to look up to Him and put your trust in Jesus. He is right now closer than your breathing and nearer than your hands and feet although you cannot see or even touch Him. But He is nevertheless there with you this very moment.

May I encourage you to read this Scripture in Romans 8:31-39:

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

33 "Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

35 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 "As it is written:"For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."  

Your friend in all seasons,

Hugh Holmes Morgan

The Reverend Dr. Hugh H. Morgan
Director of Chaplains Ministries, IPHC
Vice Chairman, NAE Commission on Chaplains
Chairman, Endorsers Conference for Veterans Affairs Chaplaincy
Ex Officio Member, National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces Executive Committee
CEO, Founder, President, Editor of Hugh's News & Commentary

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