From the Pastor, Dennis Plourde
|
To offer God's salvation, healing and hope to our community we are called to:
• provide a worship experience, consisting of prayer, music and spoken word, that is Biblically based, spiritually welcoming, comforting and inspiring.
• be an inviting people, acepting diversity.
• seek specific ways to provide ministries to our community by offering hospitality, fellowship, study and support. |
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Being the Church
Joshua 24:14-18; Matthew 28:16-20 |
I came across a wonderful little quote this week:
"You don't become a saint by staying in bed!" Now there are mornings
when we may want to say in bed and there may be days when we wonder why we ever got up!
But, nevertheless, we don't become saints by staying in bed.
When one looks at the church overall it seems that at
times the church is anything but saintly and Christians anything but Christian. We
divide rather than unite and at times we can be just plain mean to one another. Most
teachers would give us a "time out". I remember a colleague in ministry sharing how he
had contacted another local congregation for permission to use their baptistery. He had
about 20 new members who wanted to be baptized and did not want to wait for the lake to
warm in the summer. He was denied usage of the baptistery because his church did not
"believe the right way." We would rather fight than unite. Not many saints have been
created in church fights. When we fight we cease to be the Church Christ called into
being.
We have been looking at our Vision Statement and today
we come to the third of our actions statements: "To offer God's salvation, healing
and hope to our community we are called to: provide a worship experience, consisting of
prayer, music, and spoken word, that is Biblically based, spiritually welcoming,
comforting and inspiring. Be an inviting people, accepting diversity. Seek
specific ways to provide ministries to our community by offering hospitality,
fellowship, study and support." – We are a people called to build the
church.
I chose our Old Testament reading from Joshua as it
continues the story of God's call of a people to be the people of God. The children of
Israel are now settled in their "own" land. They have wandered for 40 years and none of
them remember the slavery of Egypt. Slavery is only a story they have heard from the
past generations and from Joshua. They are now able to put down roots, plant crops and
have a place to call their own. The leadership of Joshua is coming to an end. But the
question remains: How long will they be faithful to God? They don't have a good track
record. The portion we read today is part of a Covenant renewal ceremony. Joshua has
reminded them of their past and how the future now stands before them. This is a day of
decision, "choose this day who you will serve." Or, whose vision will you follow?
He has acknowledged that the past has been checkered in
their relationship to God. This is not the time to repeat the past. It is time to
forget the golden calf, the times they have chased after other Gods. Stopping at each
local bazaar and finding a nice looking god of wood or stone to decorate the house
– just in case there is some validity to it is no longer to be done. Now is the
time to put aside the past and look forward to a new future. The decision however is to
be theirs. Joshua cannot make it for them. I cannot choose for you nor can anyone else.
"Choose this day – as for me and my house we will serve the Lord." This is a call
to a living faith. This is what our Vision statement tries to do: call us to a living
faith.
Our New Testament reading is the familiar passage termed
the Great Commission. We are called to live out our faith in the whole world. Faith is
not something we hide under a basket and bring out on those times when it is
convenient. Living faith calls for a 24/7 commitment. Living faith has us always be
aware of the influences we have on those around us. Living faith has us proclaim to the
world who and whose we are.
We live at a time when many would tell us their/our faith
is a private enterprise. America is a land where we compartmentalize our faith. There
is a faith for within these four walls and another faith for outside. We keep our faith
private. However, this is not a Biblical concept of faith. To be a follower of Christ
is to let our light shine wherever we are, whatever we are doing. The organist of one
of the congregations I served would always give those who came forward a big hug
welcoming them into God's family as he told them, "Welcome to God's family, and the
hardest job you will ever have." He was a sea captain and knew of what he spoke –
How hard it was to live out your faith in difficult circumstances at best.
We are called to be Christians where we are. When we look
at these verses in Matthew we think of missions and when we think of missions we think
of "over there." We must also link these verses with another commissioning found in
Acts 1:8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth."
|
Yes, we are called to be "over there", but the call begins right here where we are. It
will do us no good to save the world over there and lose our world right here. Our local
community is of equal importance as the rest of God's world. Our Vision Statement calls
us to ministry here and there.
This month we have been highlighting the One Great Hour
of Sharing Offering and we have focused on Sudan, which is where there is a great need
now. However, we were also in New Orleans in the days following Katrina because of the
OGHS offering. We were also in the towns devastated by the tornadoes this spring. Did
you know one ABC church was destroyed in the 2007 spring tornadoes and you were there
via the OGHS?
One of the communities we served in Maine experienced a
major spring flood. This was back when loggers were still able to float their logs down
stream to the mills, and the ice, snow melt and extra heavy rains caused the logs to
build their own dam, resulting in major flooding up river. One of those affected was a
new teacher to our local school. She lost almost everything she owned. I was able to
make one phone call, and, thanks to the OGHS, within a few days I was able, on behalf
of the church and American Baptists, to give her a check to help her put her life back
together. Christ calls us to the world and to our neighbor.
This is the call of our Vision Statement: we offer
salvation, healing and hope to the communities where we find ourselves. The living out
of our faith.
The Good News of the Gospel is "For God so loved the
world, he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
everlasting life." Now I can't save anyone and neither can you. But we can point them
in the direction of the one who can. We are redeemed and can tell them were we found
the redemption. Lynn and I had a great talk this past week and she told me how to find
something we were looking for. It was great she knew just where to send us to find what
we needed. This is our task – we can point, we can tell where we found God's
love, grace, hope and peace. We can give the invitation to all to come and discover the
living Christ. We can show them where restoration, forgiveness, healing and hope can be
found by living out our faith.
We are also called to offer healing to a broken world.
Now I am speaking of the healing of relationships. We all know of the broken-ness that
families, cities, towns and nations are experiencing these days. We all have been
broken in some way or another. Our call as a people of God is to be a place where
reconciliation, healing and restoration can begin. And, where we do pray for the
healing of broken and diseased bodies.
Our hope is in Christ. We know that there is a balm in
Gilead and this is the foundation of who we are. A hope for a better tomorrow. Joshua
had led the people in a Covenant renewal ceremony. This for them is a ceremony of hope.
Hope for a better tomorrow in a land that is now theirs. This is the foundation of who
we are – we know that there is a better day coming. We know that we do not walk
through the dark valleys alone but others walk with us and always our God is beside
us.
Each week we get a Mission Prayer Call (via the Internet)
from International Ministries. This week the highlighted area is the Gaza strip in
Palestine. The Rev. Hanna Massad, who serves the Gaza Baptist Church, Gaza, wrote: "In
the last few days, the Palestinian Authority Police took over our church building as a
watching point." He goes on to tell how the congregation tried to stop this but the
police forced their way into the building. He tells how they later discovered they had
lost some $4,000 in computer and technical equipment. Also he had to stop an evening
worship service on June 10 due to shooting nearby and one of the church members had
their apartment bombed. The person was slightly injured but the family is alright. He
closes with this statement, "We are OK. Our trust is in the Lord. We continue to
experience God's presence, His peace & love at this time."
We are called to offer God's salvation, healing and hope
wherever we are, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. Like Joshua we must
respond, "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord." May our Vision and Action
statement guide us into the future, challenging us to dynamic ministries in the name of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And may we too be able to proclaim, "We are OK.
Our trust is in the Lord. We continue to experience God's presence, His peace & love
at this time."
|
|
