First United Methodist Church

Pastor’s Report

Church Conference

November 8, 2009

I am happy to report that after eighteen months we finally have the churches  and parsonage put back together from the storms. Now, the trustees can get back to focusing their time on maintenance and planning how to upgrade over the next few years.  Of course there have been maintenance issues that they have had to deal with all along, but little time to plan with storm issues.  My thanks to the trustees for their leadership during the repairs and everyone’s patience and prayers, it has helped to bring this to a successful conclusion.

The Incubator group has been meeting since January and should finish sometime early next year.  It has been a wonderful experience in leadership training and they have already started to show evidence of some of their new found skills in fulfilling their leadership positions in the church.  Hopefully, we will have a new class start sometime in 2010.

Financially we have been able to keep up with where we were last year and with the economic downturn that is a very good thing.  I am not surprised though, because I know how faithful God is, if we are faithful to God.  If you will keep working toward living out the covenant that you made with God and your brothers and sisters when you joined the church, we will continue to see God do miraculous things through our ministry.

Most of you do not have a clue how much potential you/we have to do ministry in our community.  God is just waiting for faithful persons to step forward and answer the call.  There is no secret to what the mission is; it is very clear that we are about making disciples for Jesus Christ.  That means that we who claim to be disciples continue to practice and improve our practice of being more Christ like (spiritual disciplines).  The second part is to go out in the world and show the world Jesus through our lives and offer the world Jesus (evangelism).  Yes, it can be scary and uncertainty in how things will turn out will become commonplace.   You see when you turn your life or in this case our ministry together over to God it doesn’t come with a complete instruction manual we only get step one at a time and when we finish step one we get step two and so forth.  It is so simple of a concept that we fail to do it.

The difference between what we knew in kindergarten and when we graduated from high school was vast. We just kept gaining knowledge as we studied year after year, worked year after year and had teachers who continually pushed us to do the best we could.  It seems some of you think that you can just come to church and get all you need.  That’s like going to school and never opening your books or doing your homework and we all know where that gets us.  You get out of a relationship just what you’re willing to put into it.  How much time do you spend with Jesus compared to the time you spend watching or playing, sports, TV, gambling, socializing, and etc.  As your spiritual teacher I’m not doing my job if I’m not pushing you to your maximum potential and we are not anywhere near our potential.  I love each of you way to much to let you miss out on the most awesome relationship you can have in your life.  A love affair that passes all human understanding, Jesus is the only one who can pick you up from the abyss of life; anger, jealousy, pride, hatred, materialism, abuse, illness, indifference, apathy, (put in yours) and makes you whole and complete for a life in the Bible studies for those of you have been sitting on the bench when it come to Bible study now is the time to get in the game.  Do coaches  play the players that are dedicated and show up for and participate in practice or play the ones who come when they feel like it and goof off when they are there?  Better yet, will they even be on the team?  In education can the studekingdom.  Disciple Bible Study and the Walk to Emmaus are the two most single helpful events in my life to bring about a deepened faith and a stronger discipleship.  I believe when a large portion of the congregation participate in one or both of these two ministries it will grow disciples and the church.  However, it can’t just be the same ole six and twelve that usually do the nts just study whatever they want whenever they feel like?  As important to life and these are becoming a disciple and offering Christ to a lost world is way more important than either one of these.  To me being a dedicated student and athlete are just a warm up for what it takes to become a committed and practicing disciple of Jesus Christ.

Even though we have several ongoing opportunities for practicing spiritual disciplines it may be necessary for us to offer more opportunities for everyone to learn more about the Lord of Lord’s.  Bishop Jones says everyone needs to be doing worship plus one.  That means studying some other spiritual discipline besides coming to church.  To me that means at least one other form of spiritual discipline study every week.  For me a six-week Bible study once a year does not qualify. Paul tells us we need to practice our spiritual disciplines the same way an Olympic athlete trains for an Olympic event.  If you are looking for convenient try Sunday school, you just have to show up early for church regularly, I define regularly as at least 75% of the time.

I pray that each and every one of you know how much Jesus loves you and wants to put his arms around you and hold you. I pray that those of you who don’t seem to see a need for that or think you have everything under control will see the need soon.  You have to surrender everything to Jesus and pick up your cross and follow him.  Lord, to those who still see that as just words on paper, I pray you pour your Holy Spirit upon them and crush their hard hearts with your love and grace.    I pray Lord for those who have picked up their cross and are following you that you continue to empower them with the thirst for your love and protect them from all the thirst quenching drinks that  Hell has to offer.  I pray for those who really want to be with us, but can’t because of illness or have to work on Sundays.  Lord continues to bless our ministry as we seek your face and will in all that we do.

Amen

To all of you in Christ’s love,

Pastor Wayne