The Pastor's Blog
Welcome to The Pastor's Blog! We will present Rev. Ferguson's month messages on this page as they appear in The Meadowlark. All visitors are able to read his messages. Registered users may log in and respond or comment on the entries. Click the "Reply" link at the end of each entry to respond or comment on that entry. We suggest that your "Preview" your posting prior to submitting.
Please note: For your protection and the protection of others, MUMC reserves the right to remove any posting without notice which may be interpreted or deemed harmful or derogatory in any way.
Dear Members and friends,
Some of the men have just come back to Middletown from our weekend away at the Keswick Retreat Center. We had a rewarding time of fellowship and fruitful discussions and devotions around the theme of “Connections.” To give a framework for our time, we first watched the film “A River Runs Through It.” The storyline suggested several sub-themes: Identifying ourselves with each other and God; forgiveness; and patience and waiting for God’s timing. These were all tied to how we are connected to God and one another as people of faith in a nurturing community.
As I have been thinking about it since, I have turned back to a book titled “Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations,” by Robert Schnase. In the book, the writer lists radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity as the hallmarks of healthy and dynamic congregations. In the section on Passionate Worship, Schnase writes:
“Vibrant, fruitful, growing churches offer Passionate Worship that connects people to God and to one another. Lives shaped by God’s Spirit become the nucleus for congregations with extraordinary warmth, graciousness, and belonging.” I can’t help but be reminded that worship, at its best, is relational; it connects us. I’ve long known that this is the case but it is good to have it reaffirmed now and again.
What do we do when we come together for worship? The Worship Team and the Praise Band work with me to try to create opportunities for this touch to take place in every service. What I’d like all of us to consider is how we participate in the worship as congregants. Each person has a part to play in the service. Do we come ready to worship? Are we focused on God, putting aside other concerns for the time being that we might open ourselves to the presence and work of the Spirit? If not, we’ll have a less than rewarding experience. A vessel cannot be filled that is already full of something else and if we come with our own agendas to worship there will be no room in our hearts and minds for God. Do we pay attention to the promptings of the Spirit or are we more concerned with whether or not we like a particular song or hymn, whether the service is going overtime, or whatever we might have planned for the afternoon?
If we are able to be present to God as God is present to us, we will have a rich worship experience that will strengthen our connection to God and to one another. A preaching professor once told me that every sermon is preached a multiplicity of times: once for every person in the sanctuary. It’s a way of saying that we bring a variety of life-contexts to the hearing of God’s Word, so each of us hears what God is trying to communicate differently. Nevertheless, we are drawn together like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle; each one unique, each one having a place and contributing to the completion of the whole. When we leave our time of worship, the ties that bind us should always be stronger and our sense of the abiding presence of God more profound.
Grace and Peace, Glenn Ferguson
