It is time for me to start a new blog as I enter a new church.
If you are a Thurston UMC person, let me welcome to to the blogging experience with me as your guide. If you are following me here from another place where you have read my material, well you know the drill. A blog is a place where a person can basically dump all their ideas and thoughts on a particular subject. Chefs have cooking blogs. People who play video games have conversations about what types of consoles they are playing. Hunters and fishers have places where they post pictures and talk about their techniques.
Pastors have places where they post their sermons and discuss theology. Welcome.
This first message I bring to you is all about introductions.
I am a schedule and plan sort of guy. Although I do enjoy flying by the seat of my pants sometimes. I really am a "go with the flow" sort of person. You'll find that out as we progress through some sermons. I have delivered messages with a manuscript in front of me and I can roll with nothing but my thoughts as well. As I get started here at the Thurston church I will be working quite a bit with this blog setting. As we get further down the road I might stray from the written form a bit. We will just see how it goes and what I think the Lord is showing me. Whether or not i work with a manuscript, I do like to plan the weeks and month ahead out into a format. I like to follow a series or a book of the bible. Sometimes I look at the lectionary and get a feel for what is coming.
When I enter a church for the first time (and I haven't had to do that for a while) I do have some items I like to make sure I cover before we get too deep into our time together. This week I try to give some simple introductions and lay some ground work. Next week, we are going to jump right into the deep water of reputation. It's hard to make new things happen when we matters that need addressing concerning our character and what God knows about us. In seven days we will cover that ground. Today, we will look at some opening words from the Apostle Paul as he is writing his first letter to the Corinthian church.
The Apostle Paul makes the usual introductory statements at the beginning of each letter he writes to the churches he has previously visited. It is usually the same or very similar. "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, to the faithful..." "Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." This letter to the Corinthians is the only place he uses words and phrases like this. He calls the church in Corinth "those sanctified in Christ Jesus". It is important to understand this because the people at this church have not been living as the sanctified people there being called out to be here. There has been quarreling and in-fighting. There are those who think they are superior to others There are folks looking down over their noses at the word around them. Paul writes to them to point out a few things that very much need to be addressed. That is his role. Paul is "an apostle of Christ Jesus". Apostle is very much a governmental word. We could liken it to "District Superintendent" or "Regional Manager". Paul has been called to do much of the same work that a pastor would do in teaching and preaching about Jesus Christ. What differs in his role is the scope and the area with which he has to carry out that work. It's a pretty big area!
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He makes 4 missionary journeys in all covering around 10,000 miles. That is a rough estimate. Some would suggest that it was similar to walking from New York to Los Angeles 4 times! From the land of Israel all the way to Italy. Across Greece and Turkey and into parts we call Iran and Iraq in our modern world. It was an amazing and perilous work. He put his life on the line countless times just to get to a place where he needed to share some words about what Jesus Christ had done for everyone. If we take the time to read through his letters to each of these churches, we find some tiny pieces of his life that we can put together and understand who Paul was.
Most notably, we know that Paul was a person who had Christians killed. In one of Jesus' last conversations with his disciples, he had said that "a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God." (John 16.2) That was Saul, the Pharisee. A rigid and zealous man who thought he was doing what needed to be done. Then we see this man make a drastic and remarkable turn. A bright light shows up in the sky on a walk to Damascus and he hears Jesus. The voice brings him to his knees and blinds his sight. Everything was different for the Pharisee after that day. Jesus makes all the difference.
Well, what correlations and parallels can be made between all of that and where we find ourselves here in Thurston, OH on this last Sunday of June 2022? Not everybody liked Paul. Not everybody is going to like you and me. It takes me back to a class I had on the subject of Evangelism during my Course of Study days at the Methodist Theological School up in Delaware. The Reverend Dr Randy Stearns was our teacher on this class. Randy is now retired. He served for many years here in the West Ohio Conference and at the end of his career served as District Superintendent on the Ohio River Valley District. With his wealth of wisdom to share from during his time behind the pulpit, he took us through different forms of evangelism, i.e. how to share the message of Jesus with others. He took his time with the subject of "friendship" evangelism. How many of us like to make friends with other people? Can you use that avenue as a means to bring people closer to Jesus? That is a useful tool. How many of us want people to like us? Its a natural desire to want other people to think well of us. Some might want to use that as a means to draw others toward God. He was very frank at this point and once you get to know Randy you see how he must have handled himself during his career. "Not everybody is going to like you", he tells us. The room was silent. Randy just shrugs and repeats himself. "If you are a brand new pastor going into a church for the first time, those people in the pews are going to make up their minds in those opening moments whether they like you or not. And, if they do not, there's really nothing you can do about it. Some people are just not going to like you. They're going to hear your first message and think 'I don't care for this person'. Some people are going to love you and think the world of you. And, some people are just not going to like you at all." That is a tough pill to swallow.
Paul doesn't seem to be phased as at all by what other people think of him. Without actually knowing the man, I cannot speak to what he was thinking or how exactly he handled himself. We know very little of the intricate details of his life. It takes a good reading from the Book of Acts all the way through each of his letters to piece together some of those facts. One thing we do know is that he knew what people thought of him. However, he doesn't seem to take it personally. Paul is focused on the person of Jesus Christ and what it means to share the Savior with the world around him. He speaks to his Galatian audience about where his focus is at and what is truly important to life.
As begin afresh here at Thurston and as we get to know one another, I hope we can learn how to die and how to live. Dying to self is one of the most importance features of Christian faith and it rarely seems to find its way into the center of the stage. One of the things you will find as we weave our way through sermons with me is that I am not afraid to put myself right in the shoes of what and who we are discussing and covering from the scriptures. Yes, it's uncomfortable. We want to be thought of as "good people". Having our sins pointed out to us is no fun for anyone. Yet it is a necessary part of this process to become the "sanctified in Christ Jesus" kind of people we are meant to be. The people in Corinth are not living as the people they are supposed to be. Paul takes the approach of calling them out as with the proper identity of who they are and then showing them how they are not living as the people they are supposed to be.
I would like you to know this morning in Thurston, OH that there is a reason I am here with you. As your pastor, I have been called to lead you and us in the direction that God wants us to go. I am going to have to point things out to you. Some times that might seem uncomfortable. I might say some things you are not going to like. Maybe you have made up your mind already. "I don't like that guy." Nothing I can do about that. Paul had no problem "passing the buck". Paul was just the messenger. He always put the emphasis back on to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I try to follow the same means. Paul would have encouraged his Corinthian audience to follow him as he was following the Savior. It's an accountability issue. He does this on purpose to keep Christ front and center. I also try to follow those intentions. I have been in pastoral ministry for 25 years as we enter the summer of 2022. You are not dealing with a first time pastor or a seminary student fresh out of school. I've been doing this for a while. There's a reason I lasted 10 years at my previous appointment. I was at the church before that for 6 years. I know what I'm doing and I know how to get the job done. I'm going to shoot as straight of an arrow as I can shoot. I don't pull any punches. If I'm aiming to step on your toes, then you're going to feel it. If you want to be confrontational then realize now that you're dealing with a grizzly bear. The time tested adage is true. "Don't Feed The Bears." I have been known to get a little hot under the collar if I'm pushed. But, I have also been known to be your best ally and the guy you can pour your heart out to if you need that. I have a binder at home with letters from most everyone in the Thornville church that was given to me during Pastor Appreciation month a few years ago. It is the evidence that proves what it takes to last as long as I did at my previous church. I can only hope that we repeat that process here. Thurston is going to be my last stop. I want to make you aware of that. In 6 years my son will graduate high school. At that time, I intend to step away from pastoral ministry in the United Methodist Church (or whatever we are calling this organization at that time.) However, I'm not here to just
coast out. My hope is that we can accomplish some things here. My dream is to see a full church with a vibrant and lively congregation here. And, I'm going to give you the best that I can to make sure that happens.
I don't want to overwhelm you with a mountain of information this morning. There is much more I could tell you about myself, my family, my time in the ministry. We'll get to that. I've got plenty of material to get us through the next six years. Lets enjoy our time together. From what I understand there is going to be some cake and refreshments today. Let us sit and fellowship. Lets enjoy each others company. Lets get to know one another. And, begin this journey into who and what God wants us to be.
