letter to the congregations

[The following letter was presented during worship and distributed to those present to share the ideas and next steps in our church discernment. We invite all feedback and comments!]

Dear Members, Adherents, Friends and Supporters of Appin and Trinity United:

For many months, years even, our two congregations have been wondering how they might continue to exist, and even thrive. The respective Visioning Committees and Sessions met and worked throughout the past year and, as it turns out, have been travelling parallel courses – wondering many of the same things and having many of the same ideas.

You are likely tired of hearing about change, wondering what will happen, and may be frustrated or frightened by all of the uncertainty. After a combined meeting of both Session committees earlier this month, we are recommending a plan of action: that, pending results of a financial study, the two congregations of Appin and Trinity join together into one, while keeping both buildings.

Essentially, the two congregations would become one church that has two locations. As you can imagine, many details would need to be sorted out; for example, Sunday worship might rotate from one building to the other on a monthly basis. Right now, it is on the principle of uniting the two congregations that we seek your input, feedback and suggestions. No drastic changes with regard to selling buildings or movement to new sites are part of this plan. A merger would relieve the time and energy costs on our leaders and members as we cooperate with each other more fully.

We emphasize that this is an intermediate step into our future. At some point, we have to know what our neighbouring United Churches in the Southwest Middlesex region might do, if they would be interested in future collaboration with us. In the meantime, our uniting would demonstrate to our wider church governance and local communities that we are serious about making changes that position us well for new opportunities.

There will be congregational meetings in the fall to address the matter formally with a hope to begin this new relationship January 1, 2011. In the meantime, please give us your comments and concerns! Contact any of us, listed below, with your opinions and ideas [submit them as Comments to this webpost].

Yours in Christ’s mission and ministry,

the Clerks of Session and Minister of Appin & Trinity United Church

sermon excerpts: "but the Kitchen Sink" - 1 Kings 19: 1-15

...Drought and meagerness is a theme and reality of much of the biblical context and today is no different. After Elijah ushers in the end of a 3-year drought that he predicted, he finds himself in a situation of no food and water. There isn’t anything left for him, he’s at the end of his rope. On the run from the most powerful people in the land, in the middle of nowhere, nothing to eat or drink. His prayer is for death. He prays to God to die because his life is so miserable.
Is that a comment on the nurture and provision of God? Through God we will have what we need. Even if it’s only bread and water, we have enough to get by on.

If we stop and look, there is our sustenance. Or are we too busy feeling sorry for ourselves to notice? Or are we too scared to reach out and receive, worried that it would lead to something else? Or, are we too proud or spoiled to partake?

So, given our current church situation of declining resources amid escalating cost, where is our sustenance? Is there anything we’re overlooking, afraid of, or ignoring? We struggle and strain to strategize and overcome, but it feels like too many factors are piled up against us. Like Elijah.

Although he is lucky enough to speak directly with God, even to experience God’s presence – not in hurricane winds, earthquakes or firestorms, but in stillness and smallness. Is that not where we find our faith, when we are weak and discouraged? God who sides with the underdog cares not for grand gestures of power and prestige. We see that in Jesus’ teachings.

Sometimes we need to be shocked into silence. That’s when we ourselves are quiet enough to hear what God would say to us. The shaking and the rumbling of life’s great catastrophes, the earthquakes and firestorms, bring us out of ourselves, open us to a larger perspective, re-align our priorities. When everything is broken open, the still small voice becomes clear.

In the aftermath, in the what next, in the questions and wondering, we find our purpose and mission. Elijah will go on to anoint kings, appoint warriors and acclaim a new prophet. He will set up these others to influence and affect the kingdom of Israel for generations to come. So that God’s work could be done.

We, as churches, are actually in a position of power and strength in the sense that we have the ability to decide for ourselves what our next steps will be. In our discernment, prayer and vision, we want to further the work of God in this world. We want to follow Christ’s example to love and serve. We want to listen to the still small voice that calls us forward to venture into the world around us, to connect people to their vision and destiny.

In a reality of meagerness, of drought, Jesus continues to invite us to an open table. Granted, anyone who is starving and dehydrated will not find enough nourishment in a cube of bread or thimble drink of grape juice. But the connection to an eternal and endless God of creation and life, the experience of forgiveness, the promise of resurrection and fresh starts, the spirit of renewal and the taste of unconditional love, are all ways that the still small voice is able to break through the raging storms and turmoil of our days.

It’s ceremonial, it’s a ritual, but it is real and brings in communion with a real and present way to express our faith and live in God’s grace. Our sacrament is a modest reenactment of a meal that our Saviour provided, but it means so much and offers so much. At that table we find truth, hope, reconciliation, mercy, justice, absolution, nurture, encouragement, renewal, all that and more. Everything but the kitchen sink.

sermon excerpts: "Pentecost Unity and Diverstiy" - Acts 2: 1-21

Ten days after Jesus disappears into the clouds, all that he foretold comes true. Gathered together in a room, the Spirit descends like wind and fire upon the assembly and the ability to speak in every language was granted. Aflame with God’s power, like so many human birthday candles, the church was born.

Now the listing of all those other people in Jerusalem who heard their native language spoken that morning is enough to intimidate the most accomplished reader of scripture, and I want to commend our own readers this morning on their fine work on a daunting passage. We hear these names of places and marvel at the exotic locales and thoroughness of the Spirit but we forget one thing. For all of these places named, for all of the people of different languages, geographies and customs, they were all Jewish! Some of them, as proselytes, were recent converts, but even to this point the Christian message was reserved for God’s chosen people – the Jews. So even though there were more similarities than differences between these particular people of faith, the human ability to divide and splinter off is never more pronounced.

They all claim one common identity but still were very distinct and different because of other aspects of who they are. Partly because of where they were from, the language they spoke, the jobs they had, their economic standing, there is more to them then just their religion. Just as we call ourselves Christian, we would say that we are different from the Christians who are Roman Catholic. Or Pentecostal. Or how we’re different from United Church people in Vancouver, Toronto, London, Strathroy. And even Glencoe/Appin.

Each of us here is called and claimed to one identity as a follower of Christ. But we all retain a unique quality and possess a special life story. Even the question of how we found ourselves worshipping here this particular morning is varied and valuable: is it through tradition? Being born into this community, into this church? Is it through questioning and shopping around? Or was it by trying something new and different, just once and maybe again another time?

Jesus words were coming true. The power of the spirit arrived, just as he promised. The disciples were his witnesses, just as he promised and it began in Jerusalem that morning when Peter gets up to defend his community. Peter begins his witness. He tells the truth as he experienced. Again, he did not judge, he did not argue of procedures or precedents. He told of what was actually going on that morning. They were not drunk; they were connecting to what was previously foretold by the prophet Joel: a time of great vision, of power and promise, of potential for all people.

The work of bringing God’s kingdom to earth has transferred from the resurrected and ascended Christ himself to the community of faithful. Equipped with language, personal experience and questions, given the gift of witness, they were ready to be the church. The disciples could communicate and convey the message of love and life, of resurrection and renewal.

No matter what we think of other cultures and customs, or what words we use, we remain connected to this God who loves us, knows our language, our quirks, our idioms. God can connect to us on our terms in a way that only we can understand. Our faith an be that private and personalized. But it cannot stay that way, our work is to be the translators and connectors for a world that does not know the story – to tell the people in a language they understand about a wonderful love, a compelling call and a community that cares.

sermon excerpts: "Ascension Deficit Disorder" - Acts 1: 1-11

The story of the ascension marks this transition for the faith community. Jesus leaves the people on their own to figure things out, to live their life, to pursue their passions and shape their ministry. This is not a Christian festival or scripture that is very popular in the United Church of Canada for some reason. Not many commentators have bothered with it; maybe it’s more of a Catholic thing; I’m not sure. ...

It’s a scripture that deserves more focus and consideration. I find that the questions of the disciples, the assurance of Christ and the image of those gathered, necks craned toward the sky looking intently a compelling reminder of what we are to be as the church. The book of Acts has been criticized as presenting an unrealistic series of triumphs (because life is rarely so spectacularly successful) and appears to supplant the importance of Christ with the institution of the church. But I think the most important aspect of the Acts of the Apostles is the reminder that God is very active in the world by the Holy Spirit through the faith of people, and not a blueprint for how to “do church.”

We are well aware that blueprint is changing with the times: emerging technologies, global transportation, interconnected economics and market forces, media-driven social dynamics all make our reality very different from that of the eastern Mediterranean of 2000 years ago. We cannot transplant what worked well in days gone past without accounting for contemporary influences and factors.
...
In recalling John’s baptism by water, we are reminded how the crowds came to find him, from Judea and the surrounding region. The movement reverses now – as the Spirit creeps out from Jerusalem into Judea, then to the somewhat foreign land of Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It’s time for the gospel to hit the road, to travel and spread.

It all begins with an awe-filled moment of Christ rising up above this mortal coil, disappearing into the heavens. The last words Jesus delivers are a promise and a guarantee: you will have power when the Holy Spirit comes, and you will be witnesses. One part speaks to what the disciples will receive (power in the Spirit) and the other part speaks to what the disciples will do and deliver (witness).

That’s another word that makes United Church folks uneasy: “Witness.” It conjures images of testimony, of evangelism, of pushy, self-absorbed salvation and annoying other people so much with God that they tune out and turn away. It’s too bad that the hyper-evangelistic and fundamentalist characters of Christianity monopolize such an important and inviting aspect of our faith life.

What does Jesus mean when he tells the disciples they will be his witnesses? (And this is not a request or a suggestion, it is a declaration – they will be his witnesses!) We might look to the legal system for some direction. After all, there is a legal quality to the writing of Acts and there are plenty of trials and arguments in these chapters.

To be a witness implies a couple things. First, there is a conflict, there is opposition to what we have to say, and it is conducted in public. Otherwise, why are witnesses needed? Each side gathers its experts and witnesses to prove a point, to uncover a truth.

Second, witnesses speak only to what they know or experienced. They are not the judges or jurors in the situation, they do not decide the worthiness, holiness or salvation of others. Witnesses don’t try to convince or persuade others, that job is for the lawyers to do. All witnesses do is share as clearly as they can what they believe to be true.

Jesus may have ascended, lifted to the heavens, leaving us behind to figure things out for ourselves. That does not excuse us from our mission, from following his last words – to accept the power of the Holy Spirit in our world and to be a witness.