Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis March 12, 2006

Acts 4:32-37

As we’ve all noticed, a remarkable thing has been happening around here. After years of relative stability, our church suddenly began growing three years ago. Since 2002, three years, our worship attendance has gone up by 45%.

Every church says it wants to grow. But it takes a special church for ordinary members to see new faces and not grumble, “Who are all these new people coming to our church?” but to go up to them and introduce yourself, or to offer to sit with them and befriend them. It takes a special church for one of its tight-knit guilds that has been meeting for generations to not only invite new people, but to share their life stories with each other so that they and the new people really know each other. It takes a special church for its Deacons board to make sure all our communion bread is gluten free because one new person has celiac disease.

God knows what kind of church we have become, and I believe that is why God is calling people in all kinds of ways, both ordinary and extraordinary, to come to HUCC.

One of our recent visitors has a very strong Roman Catholic background, but her spirit feels too stifled to continue in that church. She asked God to give her some kind of guidance as to where she might worship for Lent. On February 26, she woke up with a voice in her said saying over and over, “Go to HUCC. Go to HUCC.” See? God is Still Speaking! And she listened, and she felt blessed by the service every minute she was here. As she was leaving, she gave me a big hug and said, “I think I’ve come home.”

God has drawn 12 people to our current Newcomers Class. I don’t have all their pictures yet, but let me introduce a few of them.

Rob and Alisa Hathaway are drawn to our church because they want their children, Noah and Ava, to grow up in that kind of atmosphere where God’s unconditional love is practiced and welcomes everyone, no matter who they are.

Jo Kenyon has done a lot spiritual exploration of other religions and a lot of work on herself, and loves being part of a church that allows her to continue that exploration and growth with the support of other people who are open to that.

Terry and Erica Nichols are so happy to find a church that their kids love to come to, and Erica is finding her spiritual side opening up like a flower opening to the sun.

Bill Seiss grew up Roman Catholic and Katie is from an evangelical Christian background. They find our spirituality both broad enough and deep enough to help them both grow in their faith, and they appreciate having a church family that is so good for their children Samantha and Emily.

Behind every number in our growth is a soul whom God has drawn here for a reason. And God is drawing people to us from everywhere. I think the spiritual energy of our church must be something like that of the early church when it was first born, like we heard described in our scripture reading. We experience here a uniting, open love, generosity, faith and joy, that act as a kind of spiritual magnet to people’s hungry souls. It’s an amazing thing, isn’t it, all the new people that God has trusted us with just in the last couple of years? And what gifts they have all become to us! We are so blessed!

And God continues to send us more people who need this kind of church. While I was working last night, I got two phone calls asking for our worship time and for directions. So as this growth continues, what will our church be like, say, five years from now? How will we accommodate all those new people? That’s what our Future Planning meeting after church next Sunday is all about. This is our chance to come together as a church to come up with ways of sustaining the wonderful spirit of love, hope, openness, generosity, and joy of our church as we offer it to more and more people.

Our mission as a church hasn’t changed, but our growth presents us with new needs and new opportunities for living out our mission. So let’s look at the mission statement that we adopted two years ago and see how it can guide us from a promising present into a fruitful future.

Here’s the preamble:

The United Church of Christ has a history of welcoming all people, from divergent faith backgrounds, with divergent beliefs and opinions who come together to worship and fellowship with each other.

And then the mission statement begins:

In these two statements lie a big part of the secret to our spiritual magnetism. We try to stretch ourselves beyond our human preferences and prejudices and embody a spirit that’s bigger then we are–the spirit of Jesus, who welcomed everyone into God’s embrace, excluded no one, and at every turn broke down the barriers that separated people. In fact, Jesus focused on the lowest, the last, the least and the lost.

God has created here at HUCC a huge repository of gifts, abilities and love. As we grow into the future as the body of Christ, we need to look for and welcome, not only people whose gifts are great, but also people whose needs for God and for hope and for love are great. It has been said that a church isn’t a showcase for saints, but a hospital for sinners. Maybe it’s time for us to more actively reach out to and minister to those who most need a place of healing, hope and support. Single parents and people who are separate or divorced come to mind. If you have a sense of God tugging your sleeve to reach out to people you know who need a loving, healing space, I hope you share that at the planning meeting next week.

Our mission statement goes on to say that we are

We live in a soul-shrinking world that is driven by greed, fear, divisiveness, self indulgence, harriedness, and deception. Don’t you feel shrunk down and beaten down just living your life out there every week?

One of the most important things we do here is to keep our souls alive and growing closer and closer to God, closer to their full capacity for life and love and wisdom and creativity that God gave them, so that we more and more fully reflect the very spirit of Christ.

One way we do that is by worshiping together every week. I wonder if there are ways that worship could be even more renewing for us. For example, if you have a prayer or a poem or a song or a testimony you’d like to share, like Judy Green’s hope-giving call to worship a couple weeks ago or Ted Potter’s interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer today, it could inspire us all. If you have ideas for ways to better engage our children in worship before the Children’s Time, we could make our worship more intergenerational. I envision our worship in the future becoming less pastor centered and more Spirit centered, because God’s Spirit longs to work through all of us, and the more we share it with each other, the more our faith grows.

Nurturing our faith also happens through small groups. Old-style churches require every new idea to jump through multiple hoops of board and committee approval with all the cons and risks and costs heavily weighed, pretty much killing any initiative and creativity. Those churches are dying. Growing churches are called permission-giving churches. If an idea supports the church’s mission and the resources are available, the idea is supported. We have become that kind of church. The Living in Harmony group, women’s fall retreats, our Worship Band, Church Family Fellowship, Kid’s Kamp, the scrapbookers group, the support group for parents and grandparents of special needs children, our Sunday evening spiritual growth group, the Metanoians spiritual growth group–these were all ideas that came not from the organizational structure of the church, but percolated from the ground up. That shows what fertile soil we have here for continued growth. The more people we have, the more groups we will need to provide spiritual nurture and Christian fellowship for each person’s soul. Alan and Sue Dailey recently attended an excellent training on leading small groups in the church, and Alan would love to share what he learned with other potential group leaders. If you have an idea for a group and you’re willing to lead it, our church can prepare you and support you to make it happen.

We also transform lives by

Since this mission statement was adopted two years ago, our church school and nursery attendance has increased by almost 50%–mostly elementary age and under. In fact, the idea for our Future Planning meeting was triggered because of our quickly having to scramble to find more space so we could divide our overcrowded nursery into two rooms.

Our youth pastor, Rob Gilmore, will be leaving us when he graduates in May. I’m wondering if his replacement should oversee children and family ministries as well as just youth. To make sure that our children’s growth in faith doesn’t just happen once a week, we might revive the parents group and help parents support each other in parenting from a spiritual perspective. What ideas do you have for guiding and encouraging our children and youth and supporting our families? Bring these to the planning meeting.

We also seek to transform lives through

Our world can be cold and impersonal. People tend to get so preoccupied with their own busy lives that neighborhoods, friendships, and even family connections are hard to maintain. We’ve all experienced how trust and civility have eroded over time.

But this is not how God created us. God created us for a higher purpose than padding our own nests proving our worth and entertaining ourselves. Our life purpose unfolds as we make deep connections with each other and share our gifts with each other and invest our abilities in the betterment of the world.

I want our church to be a place that continually helps each of you fulfill your higher purpose. Are there ways this church can help you do that better, here in the church, in your family, your work place and your community? Several years ago our church was catalyzed by having several groups called “Unwrapping Our Gifts.” That’s how we began calling ourselves “a congregation of ministers.” Maybe it’s time to offer that group again, and its companion course, “Unleashing Our Weekday Ministries.” What would you like to see happen here to help you live your life with a sense of passion, purpose, and deep community?

And our mission is to transform lives through

If you want to feel frustrated, discouraged, powerless, and mad all at the same time, all you have to do is start thinking about things like war and terrorism, pollution and global warming, poverty and famines, politics and corruption. Whew! I’m sorry I brought it up!

But you know, we aren’t powerless. Not at all. We just have to remember that God doesn’t lay it on our shoulders to change the whole world. God gives us some of the seeds that are needed for a hopeful future to bloom, and it’s up to us to plant the seeds that are ours to plant. It’s up to us to do what we can do in our own lives and families to “be the future we wish to see in the world,” as Gandhi said. But we can’t do it alone. We need each other to keep hope alive and to support each other in creating a new world.

Speaking of this, I want to thank the Elizabeth Guild for donating the $100 we need to have an energy audit as a church so we can join the NY Interfaith Power and Light Co., which helps congregations become better environmental stewards. That’s a wonderful example of planting the seeds that we can plant.

Sara Hughes is working on inviting an energizing speaker to talk about how to sustain long term activism and social change through support, perspective, self care and levity.

What would help empower you to be a person of hope, justice, peace, and mercy in these overwhelming times?

Our mission statement says that we do all these things

This is why our church is growing, and why I am so enthusiastic about our future. As long as we ground our attitudes and actions, our fun and fellowship, our ministries and missions in this life-changing power of God’s love, we will experience life, growth and power. Because we will be tapped into the “One who is able to do in us far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine.” Thank you, Henrietta UCC, for being the kind of church where God’s power, life, love, and hope can grow so well.