I must admit that growing up, I was a bit of a science nerd. What can you expect from the girl who wanted to be a meteorologist? But I think the best part of science were the experiments \u2013 the hands on exploration of concepts. Because I saw it happen, I believed it. Because I was able to be a part of it happening, I learned it. It was the combination of not just hearing the words spoken, or reading them in a book\u2026 but actually doing it\u2026 that helped these concepts to be not just in my head, but also in my heart.<\/div>\n

And I realized\u2026 faith is much the same way. Unless we are actively practicing our faith as we are learning about it\u2026 unless we are out there loving people and helping folks and praying and seeking God \u2013 then all of the stuff that we read in the bible or hear in a sermon are just words. But when we have hands on learning\u2026 when we have the chance to apply what we hear and read to our daily lives\u2026 then anything is possible.<\/div>\n

Will you pray with me?<\/p>\n

First off this morning \u2013 to engage you with more than just your ears, I want to give you a visual demonstration of this thing we are going to talk about this morning: Potential Energy!<\/p>\n

Already the children have helped to explain some of these concepts to us\u2026 but I thought that Wiley E. Coyote might be able to help as well:<\/p>\n<\/iframe><\/span>\n<p>Well, there we have it, energy that is stored up in something \u2013 whether it is an object or a person \u2013 is POWERFUL. Just like a mousetrap that is spring loaded \u2013 or an actual coiled spring- all that energy is there, just \u2026 waiting\u2026 for the right\u2026. Moment\u2026 to\u2026 SNAP \u2013 to release! To let all of that bundled up and constrained potential energy loose!<\/p>\n<div>Well, I look around this morning and I see a whole lot of potential energy. I see a whole lot of bodies waiting\u2026 sitting\u2026 storing up\u2026 a whole lot of energy that can be released on this world!<\/div>\n<div>{Well, inside\u2026 the energy is inside\u2026 Sheesh \u2013 some of you look like you are ready for naps already! Let\u2019s make sure none of that energy goes to waste! }<\/div>\n<p>The apostle Paul looked out on the communities he ministered to, also, and made a similar statement. Especially in our epistle for today. Today, we start to explore Paul\u2019s letter to the church in Corinth\u2026 a church full of potential energy for the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo the church of God that is Corinth,\u201d he writes, \u201cto those called to be saints… Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI give thanks to my God always for you\u2026 not because of anything that you have done \u2013 but because of the grace of God that has been giving you in Christ Jesus. And you have been enriched in every way by the Spirit of God, but especially in speech, in knowledge and in testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paul starts out this letter with some praise, with some encouragement, with a reminder \u2013 that God has blessed them, God has equipped them, God has stored up in them a whole lot of potential energy and resources and talents and spirit\u2026 This is a church FILLED with the potential to truly set their city on fire with the love of God.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, God has blessed them with three spiritual strengths. They have been gifted with speech, knowledge and testimony. They are a community that knows how to share their faith with words. They aren\u2019t afraid to tell other people about God and maybe more importantly, they know what they are talking about. They have been taught well.<\/p>\n<div>They have been blessed with speech, knowledge, and testimony. Are they using them to their full potential? Is all of that stored up blessing being used to its fullest extent? We\u2019ll talk more about this in the coming weeks \u2013 but it is pretty safe to say that the answer is, no. They have everything they need\u2026 but much of their blessing is still waiting to be unleashed.<\/div>\n<p>I was asked this week, if Paul were writing a letter to this community, gathered here on Sunday mornings, what three things would be lifted up as our spiritual strengths? What has God gifted and blessed this particular community with?<\/p>\n<div>I have to admit\u2026 it didn\u2019t take me very long to answer this question. And that is because as a community, we have done some work to discover who we are.<\/div>\n<p>Back on October 31st\u2026 just two and a half months ago\u2026 we gathered as a community downstairs for worship. We broke bread with one another, we sang, we told stories. And we celebrated with one another who God has called us to be. We celebrated the things that have brought us together to this moment.<\/p>\n<div>\n<table class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"float:right;text-align:left;\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align:center;\"><a style=\"clear:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.paintingsilove.com\/uploads\/11\/11820\/the-family-meal-2.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.paintingsilove.com\/uploads\/11\/11820\/the-family-meal-2.jpg?resize=320%2C265\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"265\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align:center;\"><em>“The Family Meal 2” painting by De More<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div>And if I had to pick out the three things I saw as our strongest gifts out of that Celebration of the Past they would be food, fellowship, and openness.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>We are a church that has often brought people together around food.\u00a0 Whether it is a funeral supper or feeding RAGBRAI riders, a potluck or a progressive dinner…\u00a0meals are\u00a0one of our greatest passions and strengths!<\/p>\n<p>We also have a strong fellowship with one another.\u00a0 We meet in small groups during the week, we take time to be with one another after weekly worship, we are a community and a family.<\/p>\n<p>We are also open in many way.\u00a0 We often talk about how our communion table is open to all who wish to come.\u00a0 We have been open to going and serving in new ways – like when we answered the call to clean up after flash flooding in other communities and took with us folks who were not connected with our church.\u00a0 We are open to new people and to going to new places.<\/p>\n<div>To heck with Paul\u2026 I\u2019m writing a letter to you this morning and I say that \u201c I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in your desire to break bread with others around the table, for the fellowship that you form through study and prayer, and for your openness to whomever the Holy Spirit sends your way\u2026 and wherever the Holy Spirit sends you.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>Now, we could have some debate on other fantastic and amazing gifts God has blessed this church with. Contrary to popular opinion, there are many. This church is so gifted, you can\u2019t breathe without drawing in some Holy Spirit. All around us are financial resources, resources of time, a beautiful space with a roof that doesn\u2019t leak anymore\u2026 people who can paint, people who can sing, people who can sew, people who can build things with their hands, people who garden and farm, people who can use computers, people who pray\u2026 people who love God and want to serve him and who have all come together to this place.<\/div>\n<div>I look at that collage and I see amazing huge potential.<\/div>\n<div>Lots and lots and lots of potential energy stored up. The Holy Spirit flowing within this church just waiting to be released onto the world!<\/div>\n<div>I do not, for a minute, want to suggest that there isn\u2019t some kinetic energy going on here as well\u2026 In so many ways, we are out in the world, living out our faith\u2026 the potential energy is being turned into kinetic energy and we are active! We serve all over the place, we respond when there are needs, we care for one another.<\/div>\n<p>But\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Like the Corinthians we also have some obstacles in our way. We have some things that hang us up and get us stuck so that we can\u2019t move.<\/p>\n<div>Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to hang out with these Corinthians. We are going to learn about their troubles and their problems and think about whether or not they are things that get in the way of our ministry too. Think about ways of removing these obstacles so that all of that potential energy stored up inside of us can be unleashed on the world.<\/div>\n<div>But, I think another reason why our potential energy sometimes doesn\u2019t get unleashed is that we aren\u2019t sure where to use it. We aren\u2019t always sure what the needs are. We don\u2019t know where our gifts and talents and strengths are needed.<\/div>\n<div>For the next month and a half, as a part of our \u201cCome to the Table\u201d journey \u2013 we are going to be listening. We are going to open our ears to folks in the community as they come and share with us the ministries they are engaged in. The first one of this is right after church today, as Terri Schutterlee from the Iowa County Food Bank shares with us what they are doing to help fight hunger right here in Marengo and how we are and can continue to be a part of their work. We want to invite you to especially stay after worship on these Sundays to have a cup of coffee and a treat and to ask questions about what more we can do.<\/div>\n<div>There is so much potential here. And when this energy gets unleashed\u2026 when we figure out exactly what God wants to do with us\u2026 world \u2013 you better watch out!<\/div>\n<p>Amen and Amen.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I must admit that growing up, I was a bit of a science nerd. What can you expect from the girl who wanted to be a meteorologist? But I think the best part of science were the experiments \u2013 the hands on exploration of concepts. Because I saw it happen, I believed it. Because I<span class=\"excerpt-ellipsis\">…<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/2011\/01\/16\/potential-energy\/\" itemprop=\"url\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,3],"tags":[28,187,203,212,325,360,374,410,479,728,886],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epiphany","category-kenotic-words","tag-1-corinthians","tag-co-missioned","tag-community","tag-congregation","tag-energy","tag-fellowship","tag-food","tag-gifts","tag-holy-spirit","tag-paul","tag-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7cYpi-9M","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}