May 18, 2014
Easter 5
The Rev. Kim Gilliland
SCRIPTURE:
Acts 7:55-60
1 Peter 2:1-10
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you
out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)
THE CHURCH AT ITS BEST
THE EPISTLE OF HOPE
The little letter in the Bible that we call 1 Peter has been described in many ways.
But the one that speaks to me the most is “The Epistle of Hope.” Hope is the etched
throughout it. It was written to early Christians who were experiencing persecution for
their faith. They had been scattered throughout Asia Minor. 1 Peter 1:1 (NIV) tells us that
this letter was written, “To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.” But this translation does not really
convey the situation of those early Christians. Not only were they scattered, they were
also exiled, driven from their homes to go some place else where their anonymity might
provide them with a measure of protection. They could not go back home for fear of
further persecutions.
Into this circumstance, Peter wrote encouraging them to continue down the road of
faith with purpose and hope. 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV) summarizes the rest of the letter when it
says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has
given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead...”
Despite all that was wrong with the world in which they lived, despite the cruel
persecutions that they faced, regardless of what the world could dish out at them, Peter
gave the reason for their hope. It was because Jesus Christ rose from the dead. By his
wounds we have been healed. By his death we have life. By his suffering we have
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redemption. Sin cannot defeat us. Death cannot harm us because it has been overcome by
the power of the cross. No matter what happened in life they could hang that upper story
promise onto their lower story reality. So can we because ultimately God wins.
I was reading this passage this week in light of the conference that I attended two
weeks ago in Toronto. It was an amazing experience. I went not quite knowing what to
expect but I came home with a renewed optimism and hope not only for our congregation
but for the United Church of Canada in general. And it has been a long, long time since I
have had any optimism or hope for our denomination. But it’s back and I want to tell you
how it happened.
CRUXIFUSION
The conference was hosted by a group called Cruxifusion. What is Cruxifusion?
It’s actually a very exclusive group. To be a member of Cruxifusion, you have be in paid
accountable ministry within the United Church of Canada or a retired minister. Only
minister can belong. That’s not really a bad thing because there needs to be place for
ministers to gather to share our thoughts and concerns. There is value in pastors meeting
together as pastors. That’s what Cruxifusion does.
This is also a unique group in the United Church because it is designed specifically
for those of us in the evangelical or conservative wing of the church. I’ve been part of the
group for a little more than a year and there is lively conversation on Facebook every day
about how we support and encourage each other as a small but significant minority within
the United Church.
You might wonder how many evangelical United Church ministers are out there. I
wondered that too. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived to discover that I was
one of ninety from all over the country who showed up. And there were lots who couldn’t
be there. I thought, “Where have you people been all of my life?” I had always felt
somewhat like Elijah who when he faced the 400 prophets of Baal and then Queen
Jezebel in 1 Kings 19:10 (NIV) said, “I am the only one left and now they are trying to
kill me too.” Being an evangelical in the United Church has at times been a very lonely
experience.
That’s the first thing that gave me hope, the realization that I’m not alone. There
are other ministers out there in the United Church who believe the same things that I
believe. They believe that Jesus is who he said he was, the only begotten son of God.
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They believe that he died on the cross to pay the price of our sins and that he physically
rose from the dead to open for the us the gates of eternal life in his kingdom. And they
believe Jesus when he said that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one goes
to the Father except through him. The good news in this is that there are a lot of other
ministers out there who are not afraid to speak the truth in love about who Jesus is and
what he did. They don’t make any excuses and they don’t apologize for being Christians.
We spoke the same language all week long. It was most refreshing to see and hear that.
That’s the first thing that gave me hope, the knowledge that I’m not alone. The
second thing - and this was a huge surprise - is that they were all so very young. In fact, I
was one of the older ones there and that’s unusual. Most of them were under the age of
forty. Some were even in their twenties. They were full of life and energy and the Holy
Spirit and they were more that eager to share their enthusiasm.
I loved their worship. One of the very fun things that happened was that they
formed an open worship team. There were a couple of main people who provided
leadership all the time but there were also extra instruments lying around so if anyone
wanted to go up to the front and start playing, they were more that welcome to do that.
Lots did. Most of the music was familiar to me but there were also some new songs
which were fabulous. In the midst of all of that we also sang some old hymns that we all
know - often a capella and four or six part harmony - and the Spirit pumped and the roof
was raised and we were all captured in a moment of the Lord. Clearly, these ministers
know how to praise the Lord and they want to do in within the context of the United
Church. That’s exciting.
The other exciting part about this is that these young ministers represent a whole
new generations of evangelicals within the United Church of Canada. There is a
stereotype in most mainline denominations that the conservatives and the evangelicals are
the old guard, the stodgy senior citizens who are trying to take us back to the past.
Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a vibrancy about these new ministers
that I found most refreshing.
You can even see it in their churches. We did a bit of an online straw poll of the
churches that Cruxifusion minister serve and discovered that 40% of these congregations
are growing, another 40% are stable in numbers but getting younger and only 20% are in
decline. That’s a far cry from the national average which has 80% of churches in decline
across all denominations. Even though these stats are not exactly scientific, they speak to
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me of real and vital renewal within the church, fired by a new generation of Spirit filled
evangelical minister who believe that they can change this denomination, if not the
world.
Are they a bit naive? Yes, I think they are but there is an advantage to that because
unlike many of us older evangelicals they haven’t had to fight through the trenches of the
theological warfare that we were exposed to for the past thirty years. We have those scars
and those wounds. The evangelicals of my generation understand the persecution that
Peter spoke about when he wrote to those early Christians and tried to give them hope.
These new evangelicals didn’t fight those battles which means that they are not jaded,
angry and bitter. They haven’t been heckled from the floor of the conference annual
meetings for daring to speak against what those in positions of leadership were trying to
push through. It hasn’t been suggested to any of them that they should consider
psychological counseling because they happened to suggest that the church was, perhaps,
going in the wrong direction. Those things actually happened. They happened to me and
they happened to other evangelicals whom I know well. No wonder many of us have
avoided the higher courts of the United Church like the plague. I seldom go the London
Conference annual meetings and after attending one General Council meeting at Camrose
in 1997 I swore I would never go back. But that was 17 years ago and maybe it’s time to
reconsider.
I think the United Church is kinder and more gentle church that it was twenty years
ago. Maybe it’s because most evangelicals eventually got tired of the fight and simply
withdrew to the safety of their own congregations. Maybe it’s because the old guard at
the General Council and Conference offices who kept pushing their ideological and
theological agendas down our throats are finally either dying or retiring. Or maybe, just
maybe, there are new leaders in the church who are looking at the results of the what has
been going on over the past thirty years and finally realized that we need a new path and
a new approach because clearly what we have been doing is not working and hasn’t
worked for quite some time.
A NEW CHURCH
One of the people at the Cruxifusion Conference was our Moderator, The Rev.
Gary Patterson. Gary is a theological liberal. He’s also openly gay. To be quite honest, I
have problems with Gary’s theology and with his lifestyle choices. But he is also the first
Moderator in my memory who actually uses the word “evangelism” in a positive way and
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without trying to change the meaning of it. He understands that evangelism means to
share the good news of Jesus Christ and to lead others to a personal and life changing
experience of our Lord. And he’s okay with that and he’s okay that we’re okay with it.
I don’t think Gary was always so accepting but he’s a very bright man and that was
not his first encounter with Cruxifusion. My hunch is that he has seen the energy, the
vitality and the vision of this group and he has wondered what they have that the rest of
the church needs.
What does it have? It has a strong sense of social justice which is the United
Church’s gift to the world. But it also has a fervent and undeniable evangelical fervour
which the church has desperately lacked for a very long time. In fact, it represents the
church at its very very best with the two feet of mission - evangelism and social justice planted firmly on the ground.
This is so badly needed in the United Church which has been in decline for
decades. I think it is now official that our denomination is in crisis. We see it in Essex
Presbytery where, of the twenty-four pastoral charges that make up this presbytery, only
11 are able to afford to pay a full time minister. When I came here ten years ago 22 of the
24 had full time ministers. What happened? As congregations shrank and aged they ran
out of money. If you don’t have any money, you can’t afford to pay a full time minister.
It’s as simple as that and it’s all dollar driven.
We are blessed here in Cottam. Of all of the congregations in this presbytery, I
think it’s generally acknowledged that we are one of the healthiest. We’re certainly the
youngest. I’m not saying that we’re perfect but we’re clearly doing better than most. Is
that because of me? Partially but it’s even more because of you. You have an openness to
the Gospel and a vibrancy of the Spirit that are examples to others. We have managed to
form in this congregation a solid partnership and sense of mission that is missing in so
many other churches.
What the Cruxifusion Conference taught me is that we are not alone. There are
other United Churches across the country that are going down the same path that we are.
There are other United Churches that are vibrant, growing and active. And finally, at our
General Council offices in Toronto some people are looking at our healthiest churches
and noticing that many of them share something in common; they seem to have a strong
evangelical flavour to them. I never thought that day would come but with people like
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Gary Patterson exerting some influence at the highest levels, I think that day may finally
be here. And because of that I rejoice and I have hope.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
So what does this mean for us? Maybe it means that we claim who we are in God’s
creation and become part of the renewal that I believe may soon start to sweep across the
United Church of Canada. For a long time now, our attitude has been very
congregational. We have said the General Council can do what it wants to do but we will
simply go on doing our thing and ignore them when we have too. Maybe it’s time to
change that thinking. Maybe it time to reconnect.
In 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV), it says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who
called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” That’s who we are. We are a chosen
people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. And our purpose is to declare the praises of him
who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. That’s the most important and
most precious mission in the world today and it has been given to us. We are called to
share that good news with the world.
When I was at the Cruxifusion Conference, I picked up a t-shirt with the theme of
the conference stenciled on the front. It says, “I believe, I belong, I witness.” That’s a
great theme and I think it has a message for us today.
I believe. I believe in Jesus and I’m not afraid to say it. I believe that he came to
the earth to show us how to live, that he died on the cross to pay the price of our sins and
that he rose again from the dead to open for us the gates of the kingdom so that all who
put there faith in him will spend eternity with him. I discovered that there are all kinds of
other United Churches out there sharing that same message. That’s what I believe.
I belong. I belong in the United Church because this is where God has planted me
and this is where I have grown. Maybe it’s time for me to own that and stop try to ignore
the denomination that ordained me and gave me the ability to minister in it’s midst. Do I
like where the United Church has been going over the past thirty years? Absolutely not. It
has been like a ship without an engine and without a rudder. It has floundered and
capsized. But maybe it’s time to do something to right the ship once again. And maybe
it’s time for us as a congregation to get on board and see if God is calling us to do
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something to recreate the United Church into faithful, mission driven, Christ centred,
biblically literate denomination. With all of the disagreements that we have had with the
United Church over the years this is still where we belong.
I believe, I belong. The third one is this: I witness. God gives many missions fields
to his people where they are called to witness to the truth of the Gospel. That is as true of
us as it is of anyone. But where is our mission field? What if I were to suggest that our
mission field is the same place were we belong? One of the best mission fields out there
is the United Church of Canada. We as a congregation have so much to offer the other
churches in this presbytery. We are very different. Other churches know that we are
difference. Maybe we need to be more clear about why we are different. We are a chosen
people, a royal people, a holy nation, people belonging to God... I got that. But what I
come to know since the Cruxifusion Conference is that so is the rest of the United
Church. Some have just lost their way and become discouraged and frustrated. Wouldn’t
it be great if we could be one of the tools that God uses to remind other congregations of
just who they are in God’s eyes; to remind them that they too are a chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. Remind them of who they are.
Remind them of what Jesus did for them and remind them that they have gospel message
to share and a mission to fulfill. Then they too can be the Church at it’s very best and so
will we.
I believe, I belong, I witness. May that be our testimony as well.
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PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Loving God, we come as children seeking the pure spiritual milk that only you can
offer. We come from our busyness and the stresses of everyday life to find refreshment
for our spirits. You, O God, offer us what we can find no where else. You nourish us and
nurture us. You give us peace and security. You protect us from the powers that would
harm us. You lift us above the difficulties of life and enable us to deal with whatever is
thrown our way. Thank you for staying with us. Thank you for walking beside us and
never leaving us alone. Even when we forget about you, you do not forget about us. How
great and awesome you are.
We offer our thanks for the coming spring. It’s been wet but pray for some drier
weather that the farmers may get onto their land to get the seeding done. We also pray for
the bees that pollinate our fruit trees in the various orchards in the county. We pray even
now for a good harvest this fall, thankful that you hear our prayers.
We lift up in prayer the continuing strife and suffering in the Ukraine. Civil war is
threatened and seems almost inevitable. We also remember the Nigerian girls who are
being held captive by Islamic terrorists. We often don’t know how to think or what to do
but you, O God, are a God of peace and miracles. The world could use a fewk now.
We also pray for our province as we approach another provincial election. Our
prayer is that the end result will be a government that will govern well and according to
your principles and precepts. Give us the courage and wisdom also to vote as we aught
according to faith and the biblical witness.
We pray for those who are ill this past week. Bless them with healing and
wholeness. Be with their families and calm their fears. Soothe their anxieties and give
them the peace that only you can offer.
God of Heaven and Earth, hear our prayers and the prayers of all those who, in
faith, seek you. Feed our hungry souls and lead us onto your path of peace. We pray in
Jesus’ name. Amen.
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WORSHIP RESOURCE PAGE
May 18, 2014 / Easter 5
SCRIPTURE
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; John 14:1-14; Acts 7:55-60;1 Peter 2:2-10
CALL TO WORSHIP
God is our Rock; the stronghold of our lives.
God is our Rock; the foundation of our salvation.
Come, let us worship him in Spirit and in truth.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
We come to you, O God of Life, as newborns awaiting your spiritual milk. Come and quench our thirst.
Feed us with your Spirit. Refresh us by your streams of living water. We need your hand to hold us and
your light to lead us if we are grow and mature in faith, hope and love. Enter our worship. Enter our
hearts. Renew our lives by your Holy and Indwelling Presence. Amen.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
We seek your presence, even in the midst of our own sinfulness. Like our ancestors, we turn away from
your prophets when they say those things that we do not want to hear. Our resistance to change leads us
to ridicule those who call us to holiness. We prefer the familiar and the comfortable even if they are not
your ways. Forgive us, O God of Mercy, when we stumble and fall. Pick us up and set our feet back
upon the way of life. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
The Glory of Christ is like a shining star in the dark skies of night. It twinkles and glows and gives us
reason for hope. Be assured that that glory is able to overcome even the greatest sin. In Jesus, we have
forgiveness and reconciliation with God, with one another and with all Creation.
DEDICATION OF OFFERING
Your gifts, O God, are greater than our imagination. We cannot begin to comprehend what you have
given and done for us. Our desire is that you would take what we have and use it for your purpose. May
your love and your compassion be shown in our gifts and our lives. Amen.
COMMISSIONING
God’s love is everlasting. God’s mercy is eternal. God calls us to live our lives with love and mercy for
all people. Be born again as new creations in Christ, not only today but everyday. Live the lives that God
has called us to live.
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MESSAGE OUTLINE
The Rev. Kim Gilliland
May 18, 2014
THE CHURCH AT ITS BEST
THE EPISTLE OF HOPE
1 Peter was written to early Christians who were persecuted and exiled from their homes.
To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia
and Bithynia.
1 Peter 1:1 (NIV)
Peter encouraged the early Christians to continue to live with purpose and hope.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new
birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...
1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)
CRUXIFUSION
I attended the Cruxifusion Conference and came hope filled with hope and optimism.
Cruxifusion is a group of more conservative, evangelical United Church ministers.
I have often felt alone as an evangelical minister within the United Church.
I am the only one left and now they are trying to kill me too.
1 Kings 19:10 (NIV)
I discovered that I am not alone - 90 others gathered at the conference.
Most were very young and unscarred by the theological wars of the past decades.
The United Church is perhaps a kinder, gentler church than it was 20 years ago.
It might finally be ready for a new approach because what it has been doing isn’t working.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
There are signs that renewal is beginning to sweep across the United Church.
It’s time to reconnect with the wider United Church.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that
you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)
The theme of the Cruxifusion Conference was “I believe, I belong, I witness.”
That needs to be our testimony within the United Church.
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