August 16, 2020
- Flowers: Joan Smith
- Prelude: Jocelyn Mallonee
- Organist: Rosemary Nettrouer
- Hymn: “My Hope is Built on Noting Less” #340
- Message: Living Stones
- Scripture: 1 Peter 2:1-5
Good morning! I had a refreshing vacation and am glad to be back with you this morning.
Thanks, Joan, for sharing your orchid with us, and thanks, Rosemary, for the music.
- If you have announcements or prayer requests, please feel free to add them as comments on the Facebook page.
Announcements
- We are live streaming on Facebook and the church website (wichitaquakers.org)
- Feel free to share our worship with your Facebook friends by posting a link.
- We have room for a few people to worship with us in person, and if you would like to do so, please be sure and let the office know.
- Among church activities this week
- We are not having Monthly Meeting for worship with a concern for business today. We will have a very brief called business meeting at 10:45 a.m., August 23, via Zoom, to address the appointment of the Nominating Committee.
- The 205 Sunday School class meets today at 3:00 via Zoom.
- The Transition Team meets tomorrow morning at 9:30.
- Sandy will be out of the office on Wednesday due to a death in the family.
- Also, note that registration is now available for Great Plains Yearly Meeting, which will be held virtually September 11 & 12. See The Light This Week for Details.
Hymn: “My Hope is Built on Noting Less” #340
Prayer concerns
- Gordon Smith is still hospitalized and seems to be weakening. Joan is hopeful and realistic, and she has good support.
- Those who are struggling during this time of pandemic.
- Our church during this time of transition – may we find clarity and energy for the tasks at hand and the decisions we will need to make as we find our way forward. May we find ways to use our assets wisely and well. May we discover ways to be a beacon of love in our world.
Prayer
God of life, we turn our hearts and minds to you this morning.
Message
Before I get into the meat of this morning’s message, I want to say a few words of reassurance.
No matter how hot and humid it gets in Wichita, I will be your pastor as long as you need me. No matter how many difficulties the job holds, I will be your pastor as long as you need me. Yes, I need time off, time away, and I will come back as long as you need me.
When I was finishing my training in intentional interim ministry, I had a meeting – a conference call – with a few other students and our teacher. As we checked in with each other, I was giving an account of how things were going here. It was probably February, and I was chatting away as I sometimes do, when our teacher Pegi interrupted and said, “Class, I want you to pay attention to Catherine. This is what it sounds like when an interim minister has found her calling.”
I have found my calling. I find the challenge energizing and the work satisfying. Even on difficult days, and I have had a few, I know in my center that I am where I belong. I have no doubts about that. God has called and gifted me to be your intentional interim minister, and it makes my heart happy. I will be here as long as you need me.
As we move into implementing the newly approved committee structure, going from eighteen standing committees to three, part of the hope is that each of us, each of you, will also find your calling.
The guidelines for the new committee structure include this note: “Aim to have people called, gifted, and led to serve.”
So, if you haven’t started doing so already, I want each of you to think about what in the life of this church you find energizing. What do you find energizing? What do you find satisfying? What makes you feel like you’re in the right place? What makes your heart happy? Where is your passion? What’s your superpower?
When the Nominating Committee begins its work, the goal will not be to fill all the committee slots. The goal will be to identify where people are called, gifted, and led to serve. If that means we find three or four people who are called, gifted, and led to serve on Ministry and Counsel rather than the five to seven that the new structure recommends, then we will have three or four people on Ministry and Counsel. Better to have fewer energized people than all the slots filled.
Can you imagine? What would our church be like if everyone, every one of you, was engaged in ministry out of your passions? As someone said the other day, it might be kind of exciting.
Committee work? Exciting? It’s possible when people are doing God’s work in ways they are called, gifted and led.
The goal is not to fill committee slots but to help people identify their calling, their ministry. When that happens, when people are serving the church out of their calling and giftedness, then the church is built, in the words of 1 Peter, of living stones.
1 Peter 2:1-5 (NRSV)
2 Rid yourselves … of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 Come to [God], … and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built[a] into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
The study Bible I use notes that 1 Peter, beginning in about the middle of the first chapter includes several imperatives or directions. It’s telling us what to do.
- 1 Peter 1:13: “… prepare your minds for action;[c] discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring….”
- 1 Peter 1:15: “… as [God] who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct….” In other words, “live a life set apart for God’s service” (p. 2128, New Oxford Annotated Bible).
- 1 Peter 1:17: “… live in reverent fear of [God]” as the one who “judges all people impartially according to their deeds”
- 1 Peter 1:22: “… love one another deeply from the heart.” Care for others unselfishly.
- 1 Peter 2:2: “… long for pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation….”
Those are the imperatives in the original Greek, but there’s a lot of telling people what to do in 1 Peter.
Just in the first five verses of chapter 2, we find these:
- Rid yourselves of all malice
- Long for spiritual milk
- Grow into salvation
- Come to God
- Become living stones, built into a spiritual house
- Offer spiritual sacrifices
1 Peter 2:1-5 (NRSV)
2 Rid yourselves … of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 Come to [God], … and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built[a] into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
As we find our ministries, we can let ourselves be built into a spiritual house, like living stones.
We are all ministers, all gifted and called. You, each of you, are gifted and called for ministry.
We are not all called to be pastoral ministers. As one blogger wrote,
… ministry is what we do for God’s glory…
… we are all called to do ministry … in all kinds of different ways so that the gospel can be proclaimed, the kingdom can be built, and God can be glorified. (https://www.christianity.com/wiki/church/what-is-ministry.html)
What is your ministry? What are you called to do for God’s glory?
Listen to this bit from Britain Yearly Meeting’s Quaker Faith and Practice (10:5, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/chapter/10/):
We recognise a variety of ministries. In our worship these include those who speak under the guidance of the Spirit, and those who receive and uphold the work of the Spirit in silence and prayer. We also recognise as ministry service on our many committees, hospitality and childcare, the care of finance and premises, and many other tasks. We value those whose ministry is not in an appointed task but is in teaching, counselling, listening, prayer, enabling the service of others, or other service in the meeting or the world.
The purpose of all our ministry is to lead us and other people into closer communion with God and to enable us to carry out those tasks which the Spirit lays upon us.
What is your ministry? To what are you called and gifted? What is your God-given role in the world, in the life of the congregation? What good things do you want to do for God’s glory?
Andrea mentioned Romans 12 in her message last week:
… as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us….
We don’t all have the same gifts. We do all have gifts. As we embody God’s grace and our giftedness, we become like living stones.
As Randy mentioned in his message a couple of weeks ago, this congregation is at a time every bit as momentous as in 1898, when twenty-two people began meeting together, and every bit as momentous as in 1916 when the women’s group had a vision for this building on the corner of University and Glenn.
We seek the future, and that seeking (Randy said) will require faith, patience, persistence, and communication. And it will require us to face our own resistance to change. In that mix, God will guide us as we listen.
What is your role in that seeking for our future? What do you find energizing? What do you find satisfying? What makes you feel like you’re in the right place? What makes your heart happy? Where is your passion? What is your superpower?
What is your ministry? To what are you called and gifted? What good things do you want to do for God’s glory?
Open worship
As we reflect on those questions, let us join together in a time of open worship, communion after the manner of Friends. If you feel led to contribute, you may do so via comments on the Facebook page.
Benediction
4 Come to [God], … and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built[a] into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Please join together in a time of open worship, communion after the manner of Friends. If you feel led to contribute, please do so via comments on this page or the Facebook page.
We are meeting in person and also streaming our sermons on Facebook at 10:00 AM CST. Watch live:
https://www.facebook.com/universityfriendschurch/
Not on Facebook? You can see all of our posts and videos on our site here!
