Beginning and Ending
Dear Faith, this is both a beginning and an ending. We are ending another difficult year marked with frustration and uncertainty. But in the midst of this difficult year we still found ways to be in mission and in worship together. We adapted and pivoted in ways to do church that had never been tried by this congregation before. I hope you watched the pastor talk video as Charla and I reviewed the many things that we had to celebrate. Pastor Charla’s last Sunday was beautiful and if you missed it, please go watch on our video streams. There are still a few opportunities to bless her and we will put out the easel with those notes on Sunday. If you want to make an end of year donation, you will need to do it electronically on Thursday or Friday so the date shows for 2021.
I want to say thank you to all of those who have served in leadership on our many committees this last year. It has been a trial and we appreciate your patience and strength for the difficult work we were called to do. You are deeply appreciated. We are gathering, socially distanced, on Jan. 4th with the new administrative committees for 2022. Please pray for us as we begin our work together.
It is also a new beginning with me as the senior pastor. Familiar but different. We have a new Associate Minister whom we hope will be up and running by the end of January. Rev. Seungrok Kim was in our building yesterday to do some paperwork for his appointment to Faith and to support April Martin (Living Water’s Music Minister and our choir accompanist) by attending her daughter’s funeral. They have found a home in Tulsa and were having the inspection done. Linda gave his wife and daughter, Teasoon & Reena, a tour of the building and he sent me a text thanking us for the warmth in which we welcomed his family. Plans are underway to bless them in their move but we haven’t gotten any dates yet. I will let you know as soon as I know!
Lastly, I will be starting a sermon series on Jan. 16th called “Believe.” We will lean into who we are and what we are about as Faith UM church for three weeks. I have taken the title from an adult tv show that has taken off around the world called Ted Lasso. It is a show about a football coach from Kansas who is hired to coach a professional soccer team in England. (I must give credit for this idea from Leadership Institute hosted by Adam Hamilton and he used clips from this show for a few illustrations.) I am creating a Faith Creed from our church values and will ask you to join with me in saying it each week. It will be a time of remembering and reorienting as we begin this new year together.
This Sunday we will be saying John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer that he was inspired to write by the Puritan movement. The first time this prayer was said in Methodism was 1755. It invites us to allow God to lead us. Again, something old and familiar mixed with the New Year. I believe it ties us together and sets our eyes on mission for God’s kingdom work. Here is the modern English version:
I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, align me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you, or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
Blessings,
