Celebrating God's Activity at Faith UMC

This is an outline of my testimony during worship on July 25, 2010.  I began by saying that it was much more testimony than it was sermon, since it didn't deal much with any of the scriptures read.  It was during a service with extra singing and congregational testimonies, which we called "Songs and Stories of God's Activity." 

Background:

In the last week of our sermon, prayer, and conversation series, I asked a question that got many of us thinking during the conversation.  We were talking about extravagant generosity and how it’s a response of the heart and will to what God is doing in our midst.  So I asked, essentially, “How have we seen God active in our lives through the life and ministry of Faith United Methodist Church?”

-      The tables didn’t exactly buzz with conversation, but each table was able to think of ways they had seen God active in the life of Faith and had experienced God’s grace. 

-      But, as Karleen Beckman noted, almost all of the things people noted about experiencing God’s grace and seeing God at work were things of the past – sometimes the distant past. 

-      Others agreed or nodded silently, recognizing that this was a problem in the life of our congregation. 

-      We, as those in Christ, have experienced God’s grace, but it’s not just a past-tense thing.  God is always active in our midst.  Sometimes, for many reasons, we just lose sight of God’s activity, or our God-vision seems to get out of whack. 

-      This is a serious spiritual problem that affects everything about our lives as the church. 

o    Without being able to see and name God’s activity, our worship grows flat and heartless.

o    With flat and heartless worship, visitors don’t bother coming back.

o    Without visitors and newly committed disciples, we lose the opportunity to grow from new relationships of disciple-making and the experiences of others.

o    Without disciple-making, we get stuck in a rut of doing the same things with a little less passion and zeal than when our faith was on fire. 

o    And as we get stuck in the ruts, our life as the church becomes stagnant.  We further lose sight of God’s activity.  And we eventually find that there’s no one left to turn out the lights for the last time. 

-      Yet, while being able to see and celebrate God’s activity is a spiritual ailment, it’s not so difficult to overcome.  The remedy for decreased God-vision involves at least two easy steps:

o    1) we look at life more closely, pleading with God to give us eyes to see and ears to hear; and

o    2) we get to celebrating all that we can see, so that others can see God too. 

Read together Psalm 85 (pg 806)

Let’s Get to Celebrating God’s Activity in the Present Life of Faith UMC

-      Congregational Conversations

-      Daily Prayers

-      Women of Faith – small group meeting on Monday nights (see Sharon S. or Dee)

-      Young Mom’s Group – meeting every other Tuesday (see Susan Albers or Sarah Fowler)

-      Discipleship Plan Team

-      Faith Sewers making quilts for the Habitat house; making bags for school kits; and making hospital gowns for children.

-      Habitat House

-      The women who made food for the Habitat builders.

-      Layla Ford saying “God, we know you love us.”

-      Pablo, Bruce, Sharon, Jim, Garry, Keith, and others who made the screen happen – a vision for proclaiming the gospel in multiple media formats so people with different needs can participate in worship.

-      Doyle leading prayers.

-      The women who make funeral dinners for families regardless of church affiliation.

-      The memorials used for the screen, for the Emmanuel Church reunion, and the coffee pots.

-      The fix-it people who work behind the scenes to make everything happen here – the projector stand, plumbing, the A/C and heat, the sprinklers and lawn, and the painted walls.

-      Ministerio de Fe – enabling Faith to reach out further into the community to people we don’t have the gifts and resources to proclaim the gospel to; challenging the prejudices of our upbringing; and opening our eyes to the lives of others in our community and around the world.

-      The Confirmands and new members – and their mentors/sponsors.

-      Anniversaries – how many have been married over 25 years in this congregation?

Wrapping it Up:

-      Rejoicing in God’s activity, and sharing the good news of God’s grace in our lives is what we’re called to do as Christians. 

o    Sharing stories of God’s activity and worshipping God for it is how we grow spiritually and how we draw others into relationship with God in Christ.

o    This is what being followers of Christ means. 

-      But to share the stories and rejoice in God’s activity requires that we can see God, and this ability is cultivated through intentional practices of looking for God. 

o    This is why Paul urges Christians of Colossae, and all later readers of his letter, saying, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col.2:6-7).

o    To be “rooted and built up in him” is to spend intentional time in prayer and Bible study, daily. 

o    Jesus continues with the importance of seeking God intentionally in our gospel reading saying, “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. […] If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lu 11:9, 13).

-      God is at work in our midst, and we rejoice.  Let us together commit to practices of prayer, study, and testimony that will enable us to see God more clearly, love God more dearly, and follow God more nearly.