Will Vaus

In chapter four of "The Purpose Driven Church", Rick Warren says, "Your church's foundation will determine both its size and strength. You can never build larger than your foundation can handle." I remember when my wife, Becky, and I had a house built many years ago. We used to go and visit the construction site every day. For a long time, it seemed like very little was happening. However, in fact, the most important thing was happening. The foundation was being laid. That part of the building process took longer than anything else. Once the foundation was laid, it seemed like the construction process went forward very quickly. There were far more obvious and exciting changes happening every day. But the foundation laying process was seemingly tedious and boring. Perhaps the same is true in the life of the church. The process of laying a proper foundation for the life of the church can be a long and tedious process. But I agree with Rick Warren, it is the ...

I am leading a C. S. Lewis Tour this summer to Northern Ireland and England with tour guide, Russ Head. We still have room for others to join us. Here is a link to more information about the trip: C. S. Lewis Tour 2016 . 

Once again, we are approaching the yearly remembrance of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. If people know anything about MLK, they know about his "I Have a Dream" speech given from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963, to a crowd of over 250,000 civil rights supporters. That speech was, in many ways, the focal point of a rallying process for the civil rights movement. People young and old today know bits and pieces of that speech whether they were alive in 1963 or not. If nothing else, that one speech demonstrates the amazing power of good rhetoric, passionately spoken, by a person sold out to a good cause. One thing I like about "The Purpose Driven Church" by Rick Warren is shared in chapter one, "The Saddleback Story". In that chapter, Warren tells us that in his first sermon in his newly planted church in Orange County California in March of 1980, he shared his dreams for the future of the church. It required b...

We have begun reading and discussing "The Purpose Driven Church" by Rick Warren at Stowe Community Church. We are using this book as a catalyst to re-define our purpose as a church, to formulate a new vision, strategy, and goals. The Lord used this book in a previous church I served to jump-start us along the same journey and we were blessed to see that congregation grow from 40 to 200 in attendance on Sunday mornings. So far, the reading and discussion of this book in the context of Stowe has been very stimulating. My hope is to blog about my reading as we make our way through the book, for my benefit, for the benefit of the people of Stowe, and for anyone else who may happen to read this blog. I find that Rick Warren's work is a valuable contribution to what C. S. Lewis called "mere Christianity". For starters, let me simply say I love the image that Warren uses at the beginning of the book. The title of the introductory chapter is: "Surfing Spirit...

Here is a link to my message, on Luke 2:1-7, delivered on Christmas Eve at the 11 pm service at Stowe Community Church....  Big and Small .

If you click on the image above, you will be better able to read the C. S. Lewis quote I shared last night in our 11 o'clock Christmas Eve service at Stowe Community Church. We had over 600 people in total attendance at three services. The 5 o'clock service with children's Christmas pageant and many young families in attendance had standing room only, with many filling the balcony and standing along the walls at the back of the church. Our children and youth did a wonderful job, as did our choir in the 7:30 and 11 o'clock services. I am feeling very blessed to be the new pastor of such a wonderful church, in beautiful Vermont, with a community of creative and welcoming people. Thank you to all who by your prayers for me throughout 2015 helped to make this possible.  Here is a photo of just part of our Christmas Eve crowd last night.... May the Lord bless you and keep you during this Christmas season, throughout 2016, and beyond!

Our new congregation, Stowe Community Church in Stowe, Vermont, hosted their annual community singalong of Handel's "Messiah". It was wonderful to hear the voices of over one hundred people filling this historic space along with a small chamber orchestra and gifted soloists. Many have long been fascinated by the story behind Handel's "Messiah". As many concert goers know, when this oratorio was first performed before the King of England, the monarch stood when the "Hallelujah" chorus was sung, apparently in recognition of a greater king: Jesus. Audiences have been standing ever since, just as ours did in Stowe, Vermont last night. Here is a good summary of the story behind this beloved oratorio that is now so popular around the world at Christmas time....

There was a nice article in the Stowe Reporter today about the call of Stowe Community Church in Vermont for me to serve as their next pastor. You can read all about it here:  Stowe Today .

Stowe Community Church in Stowe, Vermont, voted unanimously on Sunday, December 6, to call me as their next pastor, and I have accepted that call. Thus, our family will be moving to Vermont and beginning a new chapter in our lives before Christmas. Here is a link to their web site where you can learn more about the church and the community:  Stowe Community Church . With all that we have to do to move, I may not be posting much on my blog for the next few weeks.  In the mean time, you may listen to the first sermon I preached in Stowe just this past Sunday. All you have to do is click on the link:  Come Before Winter .

C. S. Lewis' Top Ten: Influential Books & Authors, Volume 2 is now in print! My order arrived yesterday evening and it looks great thanks to Bob Trexler and Winged Lion Press. This book covers Lewis' reading of The Temple by George Herbert, The Prelude  by William Wordsworth, and The Idea of the Holy  by Rudolf Otto. Each chapter contains three sections: Lewis' reading of the book and author in question A brief biography of the author A synopsis of the book Here is what others are saying about the book: "Will Vaus has done us a great service in this clear and comprehensive survey of the great books that helped to form C. S. Lewis’ mind and can also inform ours. I found his work on Virgil (Volume 1), on George Herbert, and on Wordsworth particularly helpful. This book is not just for C. S. Lewis enthusiasts but for anyone who would like to broaden and deepen their reading." Malcolm Guite Chaplain, Girton College, Cambridge University   "Wi...

One sentence in the Gospel lectionary reading for today, from Luke 10:21-24, really jumped out at me: "...  Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit..." It seems to me that far too often we focus on Jesus as a man of sorrows. Certainly, he was that. He bore our griefs, as Isaiah prophesied. But more than that, Jesus was and is a man of joy. I think, perhaps, that is one of the main things that attracted other people to Jesus, and still does. Joy is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as Paul says in Galatians 5:22. Joy is a gift from God. It cannot be manufactured by human beings. Happiness is different from joy. It turns up generally where you would expect it to do so: when one gets the job one has been longing for, when one has a merry meeting with one's friends, when the person of your dreams says "yes" to your proposal, or when that longed-for child is born. Happiness is dependent upon happenings, circumstances. Joy is not. Joy is not rooted in our out...

Today is the feast day of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. Thus, I offer today a sermon (preached a number of years ago) on Jesus' call to Andrew, his brother Peter, their friends, and to us, based upon Matthew 4:18-22.... As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. In this brief account we see three very simple steps repeated in two encounters Jesus had with two groups of people. This type of Hebrew parallelism in story-telling is like our modern practice of u...

C. S. Lewis as an Infant In celebration of C. S. Lewis' 117th birthday, I share with you today a brief excerpt from my book, The Professor of Narnia .... In 1954, a group of fifth graders from Maryland wrote to C. S. Lewis to  thank him for his Narnia books and ask him questions about the stories  and himself. One question they must have had was: “What do you look  and sound like?” C. S. Lewis’s answer was: “I’m tall, fat, rather bald, redfaced,  double-chinned, black-haired, have a deep voice, and wear glasses for  reading.” That is how C. S. Lewis described himself around the time he  was writing the following words. … This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather  was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all  the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia  first began.   In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street  and the ...

C. S. Lewis Nature Reserve, Oxfordshire One of my favorite books written by C. S. Lewis is Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer . It contains Lewis' letters to a fictitious friend and is full of wisdom and good sense on the topic of prayer and much else. Here is what Lewis has to say about adoration and thanksgiving in Letter 17 of that book.... You first taught me the great principle, "Begin where you are." I had thought one had to start by summoning up what we believe about the goodness and greatness of God, by thinking about creation and redemption and "all the blessings of this life". You turned to the brook and once more splashed your burning face and hands in the little waterfall and said: "Why not begin with this?"   And it worked. Apparently you have never guessed how much. That cushiony moss, that coldness and sound and dancing light were no doubt very minor blessings compared with "the means of grace and the hope of glory....

While everyone is thinking about Thanksgiving Day, eating turkey and spending time with family, we tend to forget that a new church year begins this Sunday, November 29. Advent is all about preparing for the coming of Christ. We remember his first coming 2000 years ago. We welcome his coming into our hearts in the present. And we look forward to his coming again to usher in his new creation. If you would like some devotional assistance through the Advent and Christmas season, it is not too late to order my book, Open Before Christmas: Devotional Thoughts for the Holiday Season . Here is what one friend of mine has said about the book.... Both informing and inspiring, Will Vaus’ book, Open Before Christmas , reflects the wonder of this “most wonderful time of the year” and provides a feast of biblical meditation for the whole season. Starting with the weeks of Advent preceding Christmas Day and travelling through the “Twelve Days of Christmas” to Epiphany, Will leads our hearts a...

As I promised in my last post, here is the plan for evening family prayer from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The prayer following The Lord's Prayer was one that was most meaningful to Sheldon Vanauken and his wife as described in A Severe Mercy.... Evening After reading a brief portion of Holy Scripture, let the Head of the Household, or some other member of the family, say as followeth, all kneeling, and repeating with him the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, J...

I remember reading many years ago in Sheldon Vanauken's endearing book, A Severe Mercy , how he and his wife, Davy, after they came back to faith in Christ, would pray together morning and evening, kneeling before a wooden cross, using the Book of Common Prayer.  It was not until I got more into reading the Book of Common Prayer myself, and was doing research for my book, Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received A Severe Mercy , that I realized exactly what Vanauken was talking about. In the American version of the Prayer Book (Vanauken used the 1928 version) there is a section called "Family Prayer". I believe this is what Vanauken used for his daily devotions with Davy. The form for Evening Prayer contains one of Vanauken's favorite prayers that he mentions in A Severe Mercy . We will look at that tomorrow. For now, here is the shorter form for Morning Prayer, which you may find helpful for your own devotional life as I have for mine. There is a longer form as we...

As everyone who knows me or reads this blog is aware, two of my spiritual, literary mentors are C. S. Lewis and Sheldon Vanauken. Both were shaped in their spiritual lives by the Book of Common Prayer and used the Prayer Book daily in their devotional lives. Through them, in recent years, I have been led to a use of the Prayer Book in my own devotional life. C. S. Lewis had this to say about the benefits of what he called a "ready-made" form of prayer, including that from the Book of Common Prayer.... First, it keeps me in touch with "sound doctrine". Left to oneself, one could easily slide away from "the faith once given" into a phantom called "my religion".   Secondly, it reminds me "what things I ought to ask" (perhaps especially when I am praying for other people). The crisis of the present moment, like the nearest telegraph-post, will always loom largest. Isn't there a danger that our great, permanent, objective ne...

"I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." - Psalm 27: 13, 14 (NIV) I have been doing a bit of waiting lately, waiting on the Lord for an answer to a certain prayer. Thus, I found these words from Henri Nouwen's Bread for the Journey  very encouraging today.... Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory. We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God's footsteps. Waiting for God is an active, alert - yes, joyful - waiting. As we wait we remember him for whom we are waitin...

Today's Gospel lectionary reading is from Luke 19:11-27.... Jesus went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, 'A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, "Do business with these until I come back." But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, "We do not want this man to rule over us." When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, "Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds." He said to him, "Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities." Then the second came, ...