During a work day at the church, a church member came up to me and with a smile on his face said, “Let me see your hands. I want to see some blisters.”
Blisters are a sign that we are getting some work done and that we’re doing something that we normally might not do. I don’t like blisters. They hurt. But over time, those blisters toughen up our skin allowing us to get more accomplished.
I would imagine the disciples had really rough hands. I don’t even want to think about what they’re hands looked like compared to my soft hands. No comparison.
That’s what I like about the disciples. Many of them were tough fisherman who left everything to follow Jesus. Instead of pulling in nets full of fish every day, they were now using those same hands to offer God’s healing love to the people around them. I’m sure they continued to fish from time to time, but Jesus had taught them to use their hands to also build up God’s kingdom here on earth.
Do me a favor and look at your hands. Does anyone have any blisters? If so, raise your hand so we can see them!
Of course, I’m referring to blisters on our hands as a metaphor to emphasize the need for all of us to be involved in serving as Jesus’ followers. Maybe you have developed a few spiritual blisters as a result of serving Christ and his church. Hopefully, those blisters were only temporary and now that you have been serving over a period of time, those blisters have been replaced with an inner joy of knowing that you are making an eternal difference in people’s lives.
In our I Corinthians scripture reading, the Apostle Paul tells us that the church is made up of many different people who have many different ways of serving. This is how God designed the church to function.
Like parts of the body, each person has God given abilities that contribute to a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts. And, like a human body, when one part suffers, the rest of the church body suffers with it and must devote its energies to making the body whole again.
Vernal E. Simms served as the Senior Pastor of Morris Brown A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia. In the book, From One Brother to Another, he shares how he grew up in a rough Boston housing project called Columbia Point in a family of nine children. Although he was a hard working student, paying for college seemed impossible.
But his mother used to say, “Pray, and the Lord will make a way somehow.” He remembered his mother’s advice and began to pray about being able to go to college. He also felt called by God to enter the pastoral ministry which would mean attaining a Master of Divinity degree as well. Stepping out in faith, this young man packed for college and went to orientation but he still didn’t have enough money to enroll. He was about to pack up and make the 100 mile trip back home.
And then something amazing happened. An heir to a corporate fortune heard about his plight and paid for his college education. After he graduated, he went to his benefactor’s office to thank him for all he had done and asked him what he could to repay him.
Imagine him saying to this multimillionaire, “What can I do to repay you?” And the man responded with, “Help somebody.”
Vernal Simms went on to spend the next twenty years pastoring churches in the drug-ridden, crime-infested inner city as well as in well-manicured suburbs. He followed the advice of his benefactor by applying those two simple words, “help somebody.”
Help somebody. This is what it means to be committed to Jesus Christ. Each one of us has been given at least one gift to use in ministry. We are all called to get some spiritual blisters for Jesus.
Our church is awesome at helping each of us to get some holy blisters through our discipleship strategy of having a loving faith, a learning faith, and a living faith.
Think of these three areas as a three legged stool to help each person in the church to fulfill our church’s mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of our community and world.
Let’s take a little time to look at each of these areas where we can be involved in serving:
On the screen, you can see all of our Loving Faith ministries. A loving faith is what helps us to love God and one another.
Loving Faith ministries include Sunday worship, Small Groups which meet to discuss the previous Sunday’s worship theme, Stephen Ministry which offers one to one peer support, Music Ministry, United Methodist Women, and our Prayer Ministry which meets every Tuesday morning to lift up the many prayer requests from the previous Sunday.
Speaking of our Stephen Ministry, we have a couple of people who are interested in being trained to be Stephen Ministers, but we need a minimum of six people to offer the training. Let us know if you have an interest in this. Stephen Ministry is our one to one peer support ministry for people who are in need of a listening ear.
The next area in helping us to get some holy blisters our Learning Faith ministries. On the screen, you can see these. Learning Faith ministries help us to learn and grow in our understanding of God and our faith.
Our Learning Faith ministries include Sunday School classes, Pastor’s bible studies, Children’s Ministries including our Growing Tree Pre-school, & Youth Ministries.
We are excited about a change we have made with our children’s Sunday School which has now moved to the 10:30 service. The children’s moments during the 10:30 worship service provide the teaching theme for Sunday School that day and then the children go down to room 3 in our Lower Level to continue their Sunday School time and finish by 11:30. We don’t have children’s Sunday School on the first Sunday of each month when we celebrate Holy Communion because we want families to be together for the entire service on that Sunday.
We have seen an increase in our children’s Sunday School attendance with this recent change in the schedule, but we are in need of more adult leaders. Our goal is to have three teams of children’s leaders with each team taking just one Sunday a month. We have a sign-up sheet in the back of the sanctuary if you feel called by God to serve on one of those teams.This is one of our more immediate needs which is why I’m singling out this particular ministry.
Learning Faith ministries for all ages are such an important part of the healthy and vitality of our church.
For the past several weeks, I have been thinking about key ministries in our church like our revamped children’s Sunday School that’s in need of more volunteers. Kathy Mangen and I along with our Sunday School teachers have been constantly brainstorming how we can encourage more people to serve.
In my mind, it’s been a problem in need of a solution. But this past Friday morning during my prayer time, it hit me that it’s actually a good problem for our church to have. I’d rather be a pastor of a church that is trying to keep up with God, than be the pastor of a church that does just enough to get by.
So we’re going to keep trying to catch up with what God wants to do in and through us. God is way ahead of us and we’ll need to step it up. I’m thankful for this good problem!
So far, we’ve looked at our Loving Faith and our Learning Faith ministries.
Now we turn to our Living Faith ministries which are the 3rd part of the 3 legged stool to help us get holy blisters in serving through the church. On the screen, you can see our many Living Faith ministries:
These include our monthly Athens First Saturday ministry that happens on the 1st Saturday morning of each month here at our church and includes several mission projects to bless our community. One of the reasons we started Athens First Saturday was to make it as easy as possible to provide a consistent time for people of all ages in our congregation to actively live out their faith in practical ways.
Monday Lunch is another great way to be part in having a Living Faith.
Going on a mission trip like we do each year to Honduras is an opportunity to live out our faith.
Our annual water bottle give away for college students during move-in week in August and our hot chocolate and water give away during OU’s October homecoming parade that goes by our church are other great hands on living faith ministry opportunities.
Throughout the year, we ask for donations to support Pathways to a Healthy Pregnancy, the Athens County Food Pantry, our Christmas angel tree ministry to help families of those who have loved ones serving time in prison.
Our church is blessed to offer so many Living Faith ministries to help us bless our community and world.
We have a ministry involvement form where you can let us know of which loving faith, learning faith, and living faith ministries you would like to serve. These include over fifty ministry possibilities. They are located in the literature rack located in our front Welcome Center space.
For now, Jeff is going to play some music as we take a few moments to reflect on how God is calling each one of us to get some holy blisters by serving through our Loving Faith, our Learning Faith, and our Living Faith ministries of the church.
[PAUSE]
I want to end with this thought about building up our faith through the six different areas that we have been looking at during our Fall Faith Builder’s series.
Over these last six Sundays, we have focused on building up our faith through praying, reading, worshiping, sharing, giving, and serving. None of these areas will build up our faith without us making a personal commitment to make all of these areas a priority in our lives.
It really comes down to that “C” word, “commitment” which was our focus we began this series seven weeks ago.
Today is Reformation Sunday on the church calendar which is always observed on the last Sunday of October. This is the Sunday that we remember when back in 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle church in Germany.
This document was protesting several abuses in the church during his day. That action of posting this document sparked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Knowing that he would be labeled as a heretic for doing this, Martin Luther’s commitment to reform led to needed reforms in the church of his day.
Today, we are invited to make a commitment in the reformation of our own faith. We are invited to in a sense, post our own commitments on the door of our hearts as we offer ourselves to God in this coming year.
What does the posting on the door of your heart look like based on our Faith Builder’s series?
Does it include a commitment to praying, reading, worshiping, sharing, giving, and today’s focus on serving?
May God bless all of our commitments in these vital areas of our faith as we prepare for a new year of ministry. And in the words of hymn writer, Richard Alan Henderson, may our prayer to God always be, “Move me, move me; move me to do thy will.”
Faith Builders: Serving
Sermon Discussion Questions
I Corinthians 12:12-20
October 27, 2019
In I Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul lists several spiritual gifts and the importance of using the gifts God has given us to be a blessing to others by serving. Our strength is in the diversity of our gifts! Paul doesn’t list all of the spiritual gifts in this one passage but the complete list includes apostleship, prophecy, evangelism, shepherding, hospitality, serving, exhortation, giving, craftsmanship, compassion, healing, working miracles, tongues, interpretation of tongues, wisdom, knowledge, faith, discernment, helps, administration, teaching, leadership, intercession/prayer, music, missionary.
Which of the spiritual gifts above interest you? Which need more explanation? Do you know which of these spiritual gifts that God has given you? Our church provides a spiritual gift inventory to help you identify your spiritual gifts and how you might use your gifts to help build up the church. Let our church know if you want more information about spiritual gifts.
Pastor Robert shared the story of a student who received a grant to help him pay for his schooling in becoming a pastor. When he asked the generous donor how he could repay him, the man responded by saying, “Just help somebody.”
How has someone used their spiritual gifts in helping you to have a stronger faith? What gift(s) did they share with you?
Once we know what our spiritual gifts are, we are better able to serve in ministries that match our spiritual gifts. Our church has approximately 50 ministry opportunities that help to build up the church and each other. They help us to be Faith Builders, the title of this sermon series! Our church has a list of these several ministries. Copies are available in the literature rack of our church’s Welcome Center entrance.
What ministries of the church match up best with your spiritual gifts?
During our Faith Builders series, we have looked at the importance of making a commitment in the following six areas to help us prepare for a new year in ministry. These include commitments in praying, reading, worshiping, sharing, giving, and serving.
Which of these six areas has God been calling you to give more focus and attention? Share some specific ways that you can build up your faith in each of these areas.
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