service – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

Going All In

Posted on February 26, 2012Leave a comment

This morning, as we enter the season of Lent, we do so with the book of Romans at our side. As a church, we believe we have been called to reflect the light of God and much of that vision that we have affirmed comes right from these verses in chapter 12.

So this season, this time in the wilderness, will be a time of exploration for us. We will dive deep into this chapter and discover together just where and what God is calling us to.

Today, we start with verse one – which Zoe read for us a bit earlier. I want to share it with you again from the Message translation:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. (MSG)

Take your everyday ordinary life…. Every moment, every second, every action… 100% and give it to God.

I want to share with you a prayer… and you tell me if you think this describes the kind of faith Paul invites us into:

Prayer of a Half-hearted Christian
I love thy church, O God;
Her walls before me stand;
But please excuse my absence, Lord;
This bed is simply grand
A charge to keep I have;
A God to glorify;
But Lord, don’t ask for cash from me;
The glory comes too high.
Am I a soldier of the cross,
A follower of the Lamb?
Yes Though I seldom pray or pay,
I still insist I am.
Must Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No Others, Lord, should do their part,
But please don’t count on me.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below
Oh, loud my hymns of praise I bring,
Because it doesn’t cost to sing

We just finished singing, “I surrender all,” but so many of us… including myself… don’t really surrender all. We surrender some. We surrender on somedays. We surrender ourselves half-way… but not all.

In fact, many of us are like this dimmer switch up here. We waver in how much light we let out into the world. Our lights are not off completely – but neither are they shining at 100%, 100% of the time.

I did some research on how these dimmer switches work. Specifically the old style knob dimmer switches – where you turn the dial and the lights get brighter and dimmer.

It turns out what makes these switches work was something called a variable resistor. The resistor doesn’t conduct electricity well and in this design, the resistance is increased or decreased by moving the contact arm.

Right here, the arm is all the way on the right, and so it has to travel through all of that resistance to complete the circuit. As the charge works its way through, it loses energy, the voltage drops, and then the light is dimmer.

In this next image, the contact arm is at the top, and so there is about half of the resistor to go through and the lights are only halfway on.

In this image, there is very little actual resistor that the charge has to go through and all most all of the energy travels through the circuit and the light is fully bright.

(you can play with a flash version of these images here. Thank you to “How Stuff Works” for helping me with my sermon!!!)

Now… I find that these old styles of dimmer switches really help us to talk about our faith. You see, we put up all kinds of resistance in our lives. Just like the person in the prayer I read for you, we make excuses, we want to stay where we are, we think living out our faith costs too much. And on different days and different seasons, the amount of resistance we put up varies.

Some days we want to shine brightly and we are very open to God. We remove obstacles and barriers and let God’s love shine through us.

But some days, we throw every barrier in the world before God. I’m too tired. I’m too old. I’m too poor. I’m not going to listen, God.

What is amazing about these older styles of dimmer switches – is that no matter how much resistance we put up, and how dimly the light shines – it still takes a considerable amount of energy.

The input on the right side is at 100% power. That energy is being used to heat the resistor and then it is lost, dissipated, gone.

In the same way in our lives. God gives us everything. He is right there beside us, shining into our lives, calling us into his service. And every barrier we put up, every bit of resistance that we give, takes all of that God energy and it is used up, dissipated, gone.

When Paul calls us in Romans 12:1 to become a living sacrifice, he isn’t talking about dimmer switch faith… he is inviting us to throw out the resistor – and to let all of that amazing love and power and grace of God to shine through – 100%, 100% of the time.

In our weekly Lenten study this morning (and again on Tuesday night for those who want to join us) we are taking apart that verse piece by piece. But for this morning, I want to explore just what this means for our lives.

I think one of the best ways to understand this idea of going all in is to look at our gospel reading for this morning. As we walk with Jesus, we can see how he lived out this idea of a living sacrifice.

First of all, our passage starts with his baptism. As Jesus rises up out of the waters, the voice of God speaks – This is my son, the Beloved.

Before we can even begin to think about being a living sacrifice, we have to remember God’s mercy. We have to remember what God has already done for us.

God has created us, claimed us, named us, called us and saved us.

Through Jesus Christ, we become the sons and daughters of God and we too hear the voice calling out – You are my beloved. You are mine.

God’s love and grace and mercy are flowing into our lives at full power. It’s there without us having to say or do anything.

But we don’t stop with the baptism. We don’t stop with our declaration of faith.

No, as soon as Jesus hears that voice, the Spirit of God whisks him away into the wilderness. There, for forty days and forty nights, he is tempted, the wild beasts surround him and angels take care of him.

Jesus didn’t try to plan ahead. He didn’t back an emergency kit. He didn’t give excuses for why he couldn’t go. He went and completely and utterly put his life in God’s hands.

We, too, are called to dependence. We are called to place our lives, our time, our energy, our resources in the hands of God.

This time in the desert – this time of living and holy sacrifice – is us taking away all of the barriers, all of the resistance. We relinquish control… because we trust that God will take care of us.

You see, this time in the wilderness, this act of living sacrifice ONLY works if we believe the first part…. That God loves us and forgives us and gives us life.

And then, after he had experienced absolute dependence upon God and let all of his temptations and resistance go, Jesus came out of the wilderness and went straight to work.

Placing our lives in God’s hands mean that all of that power is flowing directly through us… and we can’t help but shine.

Our worship and our service and our ministry are one and the same thing. In every moment of every day, we are responsive to where God wants us to go. We serve him. We let him shine through our hearts.

As Lent begins, we are invited to walk with Jesus. We are invited to enter the wilderness, knowing and trusting that the power of God is 100% behind us. And we are called to let shine.

Give up any resistance you might have in your life. Because of the amazing things that God has done for you already – trust him. Know that he will take care of you. Let go of your worries and your resistance and let him have your life. Then your light will shine brightly for all the world to see, 100%, 100% of the time

What if we put the church last?

Posted on September 20, 2009Leave a comment

Last summer, when we went on vacation with my husband’s side of the family we all were packed into two different vehicles on the way home. My neice and nephew were fighting about who got to ride in our car, and so to make it the most fair, we divided them up and they got to switch places about half-way through the 7 hour trip. My neice, Cami, rode with us first.

And for the first thirty minutes of our drive – we sang one song. Over and over and over again. “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar.” Cami did “Who me?” yes, you, “Couldn’t be” then who? You get the idea.

Only, my husband liked to mercilessly tease my neice. Whenever the song got passed to him – he fully admitted eating the cookies! =) He would make chomping sounds and say how good the cookies were and my neice would protest! “You’re not really supposed to eat the tookies!!!” The fun part of the game is that no one ever really gets caught. The fun part is in blaming other people!

But when I read our scripture from this morning and find Jesus catching the disciples arguing – it’s a classic hand caught in the cookie jar moments.

The disciples were having a rough day. First they did some hard ministry casting out demons and healing people and then Jesus has them leave and head back to Galilee – familiar homeland for some of these guys. Only, he makes them keep quiet about even being back home because he wants to spend some time with them personally.

That’s all well and good – except for the fact that Jesus started talking about dying but not really being dead again. They couldn’t figure out how that fit into the whole “good news” mission that they were on, and after the last time when Peter got told that he was Satan for speaking up, no one dared question Jesus motives.

Instead they decided to have their own little private conversations. And somehow the topic of the day turned to who was the best among the disciples. Each thought they had a certain quality that made them special – something that caused them to shine just a little bit brighter than the others. Their efforts to outdo one another with pride and bragging practically turned into a full blown fight as they begun to point out one another’s weaknesses and faults. Elbows were still being jabbed as they all finally sat down after a long days walk in the house in Capernum for the night.

And Jesus carefully looked at each one in the eye and said: What were you arguing about on the way?

And the disciples froze. Surely he hadn’t heard! Were they really so dumb as to argue about who was the best? Ugh.

They felt so stupid. They felt exposed. They were caught red handed. And there was no one else to blame.

It’s fairly easy to look back upon them and find the whole situation rather silly. Jesus is talking about giving up his very life for the sake of the world and they are arguing about which one of them is better than the other. It’s easy, that is, until we try to imagine what it would be like if Jesus sat down among us and asked what WE had been talking about… what WE had been doing.

Many of us would probably fall silent too if we had to explain our actions for the last week… or month… or year.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what Jesus would say if he showed up in our congregation. In fact – whenever I hear Jesus talking in the gospels to an individual person – I’ve started substituting the world “church” in. Because I’m hoping for a word, a direction, a clue as to what we need to be doing next.

So last week, in our gospel reading Jesus said

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34, NRSV)

Reinterpreted:
If your church wants to follow me, it has to deny itself, take up its cross and follow me. The church needs to set aside its own wants and desires and head to those places of struggle between life and death, hope and despair in our world.

Whew… that’s a big old fat message!!!

I did the same this week:

After Jesus asks the disciples what they were arguing about… because he knows it was about who is the best, he tells them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

So I’ve been praying about that and here is what I hear when I put the church into that message:

Your church needs stop worrying about filling the pews, stop thinking that you’re so wonderful people should just be flocking to you… and instead needs to position yourselves as the last… as the least – as the servant of all and your church should go to where the people are.

To put it another way: God’s vision needs to come first – And God’s vision is for the people of this world. Look for where God’s heart is breaking in your community and humble yourself to go and serve there… everything else will sort itself out.

At the beginning of August – our church received an invitation. It was an invitation by our conference to participate in a journey that could help us do just that: follow Christ into the world and learn how to be the church in our community.

Jill Sanders, our Field Outreach Minister came down and shared this invitation with us at an Administrative Board meeting, and I know that some of you were there – but not all of you.

As we gathered – here were some of the statements that Jill shared with us that really rang true in our minds:

We live in an unchurched world and feel the church is ill equipped to respond. We look out at Marengo – at Iowa County – at our state and see so many people who need to hear that God loves them and we have no idea how to respond.

We are tired of just going to church and want to really be the church. We are tired of waiting for people to come to church and want to go make church happen in the world!

We are challenged by the passion and vitality of newer congregations. We want to know what makes them tick. We wish we had the energy and passion to be out there in the world bringing people to God.

We also said that we hoped God might give us increased clarity of purpose as a congregation. What are we here for? What are we specifically called to do?

And how can we develop leaders in our congregation? How can we help to nurture people, energize people around the tasks that God has called us to?

And Jill’s response…

That we are ready. That we are no longer a congregation that is merely surviving. That in these past two years we have grown and we are in a healthy place and that if we really want to answer those questions – that she has an invitation for us.

My hope was that in the weeks following that event, those who were there would talk about what that invitation entailed: this missional transformation process and that word of this thing might spread throughout the congregation.

But for those of you who haven’t heard… or those of you who may have forgotten – I want to share again what that invitation is.

The Missional Transformation Process is a two and a half to three year journey where we as a congregation ask:
Why does our community need this church?
What does God want us to do here?
And how will our church live out God’s vision in our life and mission?

Those are big questions. And to answer them, we would be invited to do a few things.

1) We need a committed group of 4 or 5 people who would be willing to go with me to 6 day long workshops. These workshops will be spread out over 2-3 years, and each one prepares us as a congregation to take the next step forward.

2) We as a whole congregation move through those steps through prayer, conversations, bible study, and by listening to God.

3) we open ourselves up to possibility. And we trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us and give us the courage we need to answer!

4) we do need to make a financial commitment to this process. As a congregation – spread out over three years – we would commit $1250 that would go towards the cost of workshops, materials, and a partner that will work directly with our church.

This process has six steps:

1) Getting Ready for the Journey
2) Discovering our Missional Context
3) Discerning God’s Call
4) Crafting our Missional Strategy
5) Shaping Missional Life and Witness
6) Living into a Faithful Future.

What might this all look like when we are done?

Possibilities: family church; youth church; Hispanic ministry; elderly ministry; something we can’t even imagine.

Can I be completely honest with all of you? When I first saw this process all laid out my first reaction was a huge sigh of relief. Because I desperately want to help our church to grow and thrive… but I know the only way to do that is to get on board with what God is doing here in Marengo. And as a new pastor, this resource is amazing. It takes the best of what we have to offer and molds it with what God wants from us.

But even as I’ve been excited about it, and as I have sensed some of you are getting excited about it, I have also sensed some really big reservations. It’s almost as if you all are thinking – this is a really great thing, but…

First, you think you’ve tried this before and it didn’t work.

Second, you may think this is a great idea, but you aren’t sure that you can personally make the commitment. We have to have 4-5 people who are committed to these workshops. People who are willing to not only show up, but who are willing to bring these materials back to the church. People who are willing to ask tough questions, people who aren’t afraid to speak up with creative ideas. People who are full of passion and energy. And what I have realized is that these may not be the people who have been faithfully serving our church in the past. They have been working long and hard and they are tired! And so what we need is prayer for God to place this calling on the hearts of a few people and we need the courage to look for people to stand up from places we may not have expected.

At our next Ad Board meeting – on October 4, we will sit down and decide if we are going to say yes to Jill’s invitation. What I need from all of you is serious considered prayer. I need you to think about this at home, with your family. I need you to listen for God’s prompting. I need you to look at any reservations you might have and to PLEASE come and talk with me or other people in leadership here at the church about them. I need you to ask questions, to share your feelings and your passions.

And probably most importantly, I want us to look back on our prayer of confession for today. I want us to think about what it means to put ourselves second or third in order for God’s vision and will to be in the front. And I want us to say those words again together…

God of patience and mercy, we come to you, offering “lip service” to serving you, but when things get difficult; when we are called to do something which is hard for us, we shy away from the duty and the opportunity. We turn our back on service out of fear of failure.

Forgive us, gracious Lord. Heal our fears and our weaknesses. Strengthen us and give us courage to truly be your disciples, not counting the rewards, but rejoicing in the work. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN. (Cokesbury Worship Connection)

Becoming Disciples through: Service

Posted on May 24, 2009Leave a comment

The other night my husband and I had finished dinner and I stood up to clear the table and take away our plates.

As he handed me his dish he said, “you know, you don’t have to wait on me, I can take my own plates to the kitchen.”

And without even thinking about it, I responded, “I know – but I do it because I love you.”

How many of you are familiar with Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages’?

A long time ago, a friend gave me the book, and I immediately thought about those five languages when I made that statement to my husband.

I try to do little things to help out because that is one of the ways that I most naturally express my love for him. Gary Chapman calls that acts of service.

Service? Hey – we’re talking about service today! And we are exploring specifically how we express our love of God through acts of service.

Curiousity got the better of me, and I took another quick look at how our five membership vows match up with these five love languages Chapman examines in his books.

We started out with prayer as a way of discipleship… and talked about how we should aim to pray more deeply. Using the metaphor of breathing, our prayers should not be shallow quick breaths, but deep, filling breaths in and out. In Chapman’s languages of love, quality time is about focusing all of our energy on another person so that the time we spend with one another is not simply hanging out, but is a deep sharing of who you are. In many ways, our prayers are how we spend quality time with God, focusing our attention on God’s will for our lives, rather than our own wishes and desires.

Then we looked at what it means to be present as an expression of our discipleship. While it isn’t an immediate fit, Chapman lists physical intimacy and touch as one of his love languages. In so many ways, our presence with one another, our physical presence with people who are hurting is an expression of our love not only for them, but also for God. We literally become the hands and feet of God who hold and comfort and who smile and are close to one another. Our Lord and Savior became human and lived among us – touching the sick and the young and the old and the forgotten in order to express the love of God to the world, and we respond by doing the same.

Last week we talked about our gifts. We are not only given amazing and beautiful gifts by God, but in response, we share those gifts for God’s work in the world. Easy tie in to Chapman’s love language of giving and receiving gifts. I think something that we can easily learn from his description of giving gifts is that we are not investing money (or time) in these gifts, but through the gift, we are deepening our relationship with God. People who have shared with me that they tithe regularly often talk about what a joy it is and how it really does bring them closer to God.

I’m definitely going to have to remember this book next time this sermon series comes around, because our fifth vow next week also correlates pretty well to one of Chapman’s five languages – words of affirmation. Now, witnessing to our faith is not quite the same thing as offering encouragement to a loved one – but in both cases, we sing their praises as we share with the world what is great about either our loved one or about God. Next week, we not only will be celebrating Pentecost – the coming of the Spirit that helps us to witness, but we will also be confirming some of our youth – and will be encouraging them in the faith as they witness to what they have learned in this past year.

But for today – it’s all about service.

And not only for Chapman, but also in our life of faith, service is about love.

Attitude is everything when it comes to service – and our call to service is a call to act out of love and not obligation, to act not out of resentment or guilt or fear or even duty – but out of the depths of our hearts.

In every way, Memorial Day, is about honoring the service of men and women throughout our nation’s history who have done just that. They showed their love for friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens in such a way that they were willing to give even their lives.

In both of our scriptures today, we are reminded that there is no greater love than to lay down our lives for one another. From our Epistle reading, we are commanded to love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

While accounts may vary, Memorial Day began initially as community celebrations honoring the fallen soldiers who gave their lives to battle slavery. Their words of equality and love of neighbor were transformed into moral truths and action on behalf of the disenfranchised and they deserved to be honored. But, because initially these acts of memorialization were so closely tied with the fight for emancipation, the Southern states quickly established their own rival “Confederate Memorial Day.”

These community acts of decorating graves were then made official by an order from General John Logan that Memorial Day be on the 30th of May and on the first Memorial Day in 1868, flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers in Arlington Cemetery. But in the effort to put the differences of both sides behind us, the recognition that the Civil War had been a moral battle to free black Americans from slavery was lost. It became more of a generic remembrance of all war dead, while at the same time losing the specific passions of truth and justice that characterized its beginnings.

David Blight wrote about this loss in his book “Race and Reunion.” “War commemorations, he makes clear, do not just pay tribute to the war dead.” They should also honor what those men and women died for – the truth and the action that go along with the sacrifice.

I really struggle with talking about national interests in church. Our time of worship should be focused on God and not on our country. We are coming together to worship the one who is Lord over every nation – not just ours. In many ways, when we become Christian we cease to simply be American.

And yet, in many ways, so many of our soldiers have fallen for that reason – to protect and defend and to free the lives of God’s children all over the world from tyrannies of injustice and oppression. They have put their lives on the line not because of duty but because they genuinely want to make a difference in the lives of people across God’s creation.

They choose to serve in that capacity because they believe that it is in the armed forces that they can make the biggest impact.

Do you remember the question that I asked you at the beginning of this sermon series? I shared with you that the mission of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And I asked very pointedly, how many of you thought that was possible. I asked how many of you really felt equipped and empowered by the church to go out and make a difference in the world.

I believe that tomorrow, we should fully honor our fallen brothers and sisters who died because they believed that the world could be different – because they loved other people enough to put their lives on the line.

But today, I believe that we should lament the fact that our church has not shared our story in such a compelling way. I believe that we should lament the fact that we don’t have strong enough convictions in the power of God to change the world. I believe we should lament the fact that we aren’t out there in the world, putting our lives on the line every day in service to others.

Bishop Robert Schnasse has called churches to be fruitful for God’s Kingdom and one of the ways we can do so is through risk-taking mission and service. Just as in our gospel reading from today, we are called and appointed to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, and the root of that fruit is God’s love. Schansse writes that “nothing is more central to faith identity and to the church’s mission than transforming the lives and conditions of people by offering oneself in God’s name. Nearly every page of Scripture shows people serving God by serving others.”

I’m often asked what the difference is between doing community service and serving people through the church. And usually my response has something to do with the fact that God is the reason behind our service when we do it in the church. We have been loved by our Creator and Redeemer and so through God’s power we pour ourselves out to other people.

But as I read a bit more of Schnasse’s book this week, I also realized a big difference comes in the “risk-taking” element. “Risk-taking mission and service takes people into ministries that push them out of their comfort zone, stretching them beyond the circle of relationships and practices that routinely define their faith commitments.” In other words, when God is in charge, we have no idea where we might end up!

This was certainly true for me on my very first international mission trip. I went with youth from my church to Peru and we had this grandiose idea that we could change the world and make a difference! We believed in the power of God to work through us. We definitely had the first part right!

What we never expected was how we ourselves would also be transformed. As we found ourselves in a completely different culture, making friends with people who looked nothing like us, loving people who were unlovable by their society’s standards, we became different people.

Schnasse writes that “the stretch of Christian discipleship is to love those for whom it is not automatic, easy, common or accepted. To love those who do not think like us or live like us, and to express respect, compassion and mercy to those we do not know and who may never be able to repay us – this is the love Christ pulls out of us.”

This is God’s abiding love that gives us the power to respond when we see a brother or sister in need. This is God’s abiding love that gives us the ability to speak truth to power when there are injustices in the world. This is God’s abiding love that leads us to lay down our lives for one another.

Now, the big question is – how do I live this out through the church.

Oftentimes, when I have heard this topic of service mentioned in the church, it comes with one of two demands. 1) we need to get more people to serve on the committees in the church. or 2) we need to get more people involved in mission and outreach.

The truth of the matter is, we need people to serve in all sorts of different places. In order to have people serving on the front lines of God’s Kingdom, we need people serving on the church finance committee who will hold the church accountable for their resources, and we need an administrative board and PPR that will help us to discern and express God’s vision for our church.

But, we also need people who are willing to go wherever God will lead us.

If you are feeling called and led to go and serve God’s children in a malaria ridden village in Africa – and you want to put your whole life into God’s service – we want to support and encourage you and equip you.

If you are feeling called to make sure those who are struggling financially in our community have food on the table every day – and you are willing to put your whole life into God’s service – we want to support and encourage and equip you.

If you are feeling called to listen to the person who disagrees with you across the table in our church office and work together to really make a difference in how we teach our children – and if you are willing to put your whole life into God’s service in that way – then we want to support and encourage and equip you.

The truth of the matter is, if we can’t love and serve the person who sits down the pew from us or across the table in the fellowship hall, then we aren’t ready to be out in the world loving and serving other people. But here is where we practice, here is where we learn. And here is where we are sent out into the world to serve. Amen and Amen.

making members, making disciples

Posted on April 20, 20093 Comments

At my church, we have a pretty significant number of people who are “constituents” of our church and not official members. For various reasons, these people want to be an active part of our congregation but do not want to take the vows of membership and officially become United Methodist. And yet, many of those individuals are just as, if not more, active than the “members” of our church.

At School For Ministry last week, we talked a lot about making disciples, and very little about making church members. And at one point in the conversation, we actually admitted that we don’t really expect people to uphold their baptismal vows. If we did, we would have a structure for responding or holding people accountable to their choices. But we don’t. We baptize them, hold them in our prayers and pray to God that a seed we might have planted would take root.

Contrast that with early Christianity. Baptism was a process you only went through after years of formational training. I’m not sure that “membership” was ever the term used in that time, but certainly one could be excluded from the body for offenses until penance had been made. Confession of faith was extremely important.

Now, our church has very good reasons for upholding infant baptism. It says that baptism is a sign that God’s grace goes before us – even before we are able to respond. But… BUT… baptism is also supposed to be an act of the congregation as we together promise, covenant, commit ourselves to nurturing that baby in the Christian faith.

Perhaps it was because for such a long time, Christianity was just the norm that we lost touch of those promises. The congregation didn’t take seriously their role, because after all, this was a Christian nation and anyone who was raised simply by the culture would be brought up Christian. But that was a false presumption and it has led to whole generations of people who have been formed by the culture’s view of Christianity, rather than God’s view of culture.

So we make members. We ask people to join our club. And we count our success in ministry by the number of people we have on the rolls.

And there is nothing in there about making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

The big question for me is how do we start? How do I help my confirmation kids, or the baby who will be baptized this next Sunday – but whose parents do not even attend my church (her grandparents do), or the members of my congregation who think that simply by showing up once a month they are living out their commitments… how do I begin to show each of those groups of people that ideally, membership is a process of discipleship?

Let’s look first at the process of membership.

1) we ask people to renounce sin and profess their faith
2) the congregation promises to nurture one another in the faith
3) if someone has not been baptized, we do so
4) if it is someone who was baptized before and is now reaffirming their faith (new members or confirmands) we have a blessing over them.
5) we recieve people into the church with the following vow:
as members of this congregation, will you faithfully participate in its
ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service and your witness? I will.

In our tradition, being a member means taking on those five responsibilities.

And to be honest – I think that they are good commitments to make. I believe that they can be disciple making activities. But the big disconnect is the part where it says “its ministries.” We expect that all of this disciple making will happen in the congregation, or in some way connected to a ministry of the congregation. And it might not. It may be in a bible study at work, or in helping a neighbor, or partnering with community agencies to share your gifts. Our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness will be evidence of our growth as disciples… but we can’t let ourselves be limited to the church. We have to be disciples for the transformation of the world.

Maybe that is my starting place. As we baptise an infant next week, I need to uplift that it is our responsibility to help nurture her wherever in the world she may be. As we get ready to confirm our youth, I need to encourage them to be disciples wherever they may be. And as we go over these membership vows in teaching and preaching in the next five weeks – I need to remind people that this is their responsibility and commitment… and that we need to hold one another accountable to doing so in EVERY facet of our lives.