Engaged by God in Worship

Worship is one of our 7 Elements of a Living Faith. "Engaged by God" is part of our mission statement.
I write this article just as the church music groups are all starting up again for the season, and they’re doing a great job. We in the music department know that our primary job is to lead the congregation in song. We prepare week after week to effectively do this. We know that music is a treasured gift that we use to worship God as a community, whether we are a seasoned professional or an eager volunteer.

We also realize that our job as music leaders is becoming increasingly more difficult as we observe that many are not engaged to be led. Have you noticed that some people come to be observers only? Not opening the hymnbook or bulletin? We know that contemporary communication and entertainment has made it easy for us take in much information and to be critical observers, but not always participants. So where do we all fit in?

It is an age-old belief that worship is a "community effort," meaning that the whole community is included in the act of worship. In fact, worship is one big dialogue. Leaders speak (sing) and the community (congregation) responds. What a great plan for group participation.

Leader: In peace let us pray to the Lord
ALL: Lord have mercy.
Leader: Hear us O God
ALL: Your mercy is great.
Leader: The Lord be with you
ALL: And also with you.
Leader: Go in peace, engaged by God
ALL: Thanks be to God.

What about music? Hymns and songs are chosen because of the function they play or the themes that they present. Congregational song provides a way for the community to join together in a powerful collective to proclaim what we believe and what we value as a Christian community.

But what if you cannot sing? Because so much of our music comes from scripture or Christian poetry, we maintain that the words themselves are a great witness to our beliefs. So if you cannot sing, you might wish to just follow along (or sing softly) to be involved with the whole community.

Where to start? Consider raising the importance of Children and Youth Choirs for your family. We Adult musicians have been doing this since we were in children’s choirs and we were groomed to be active in the life of our church in all aspects (teaching, mission, stewardship, outreach) through our experiences.

Our Children’s Choir does a great job, but should have many more members. Would you like your child to be on a path of life-long church participation? Perhaps Children’s Choir is perfect for your family and for our whole faith community’s future.

Back to Basics

Earth, Water, Wind, Sun. It seems we have too few opportunities to engage these basic elements of life. It’s no wonder summer is a time of refreshment and renewal - hikes through the trees and mountains, cool dips in the lake, summer breezes that rock us on the hammock, endless days soaking up the sun and evenings around the campfire – these things nourish us and give us life. When talking with a guy who had just returned from the boundary waters, he said, “If I had the chance I would go back tomorrow; I loved it that much.” We can’t seem to get enough.

Yet as summer is a time of refreshment, I find fall to be a time for renewal of faith. Fall is the time when we seem to once again get back to the basics of church life: Sunday school where we engage God’s story, new classes and opportunities to learn about God’s grace and calling. Choirs reunite to share their gifts of music, teams and committees form to serve the world around us.

This year our congregation will once again lift up the
Elements of a Living Faith: Prayer, Worship, Scripture, Service & Justice, Spiritual Friendships, Stewardship, and Sharing God’s Story.

I invite you to explore where you are in your faith journey. Celebrate the ways you are being engaged by God through your faith in the different areas of your life. Look at how your faith continues to play out in your home, here at church, and through the various things you are involved with in the world.

Then I invite you to take the next step. Take a leap even; a leap of faith to possibly discover God in a new way.
As life is a journey, so is faith. We need to keep taking new steps and trying new things or we will go nowhere. I look forward to taking the next step on this journey of faith with you. 

Stepping it Up

Walk into a bookstore and you will see a giant section of self-help books designed to help you take control of your life, or face the truth about problem relationships or self-destructive behaviors, or get out of debt, or re-create your image, your shape or your vision for the future. Dr. Phil makes a living by challenging people not to wallow in self-pity or helplessness, but rather step up and do something about what ails them. Shows like “The Biggest Loser” attempt to show overweight America what kind of transformation is possible with determined personal effort and consistent support and accountability.
It seems like a whole lot of people must be interested in growing, changing and improving their prospects for personal happiness.

What self-improvement goals are you working on these days? Are you doing something intentional to grow your work skills? Are you trying to establish an exercise regimen to lose those stubborn 30 pounds? Are you taking some golf lessons to deal with that chronic hook or slice? Are you enrolled in marriage care, valuing that central relationship in your life enough to work on it a formal way? Do you have a "life coach" teaching you how to focus on your strengths and avoid negative thoughts? Are you learning how to play that guitar, finally? Are you disciplining your spending habits so you can save for retirement, or putting in regular time to finally finish writing that novel? Are you making progress towards the thing you believe would be good for you?

In many areas of life, it gets easy to start coasting. Once you get that driver’s license, most people do not put a value on keeping their skills and knowledge sharp. Spouses and significant others begin to get neglected after the first few years together. And we often find ourselves hitting long stretches where we forget to put much intentional effort into our relationship with Christ and our understanding of where God is leading us.
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he gives his followers this self-help advice: So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

At Gethsemane, we are returning the Elements of a Living Faith banners to the sanctuary this fall as a reminder of ways we can intentionally seek a closer relationship with the Lord. When we struggle to find peace of mind, self-confidence, strength to forgive others, courage to love again or discipline to make hard changes, maybe we have been doing some coasting in our individual pursuit of God’s kingdom and righteousness.

While many of those self-improvement goals I named earlier may very well enable you to serve God better (for example, I’d LOVE to have a confident guitar player at Confirmation on Wednesday nights!), maybe the most effective first step towards progress is praying for God to help us step it up—and then putting ourselves in the right places to hear him and follow where he leads. Let’s step it up together this fall in seeking God’s kingdom.

It's Summer! Time to Meet the Neighbors

I love summertime! In Minnesota it seems like we wait all year for the beautiful weather, the opportunity to be outside and mingle across the fence posts catching up with our neighbors. The memories and stories that I hold most dear from my childhood summers include what felt like months and months of long hot days, backyard barbeques with family friends, playing outside with groups of kids until late into the evening, watermelon cut and shared between friends, and root beer floats shared on the neighbor’s front porch. Summers of my childhood seemed to be an endless series of lazy days spent playing with family and friends and enjoying an easy laid-back way of life.

I have been reflecting on these memories over the course of the summer as I read the book Outcasts United, by Warren St John and participated in the community discussion that we held at Gethsemane in mid-July. As I looked around the tables in our fellowship hall on that evening and saw immigrants from several different countries right alongside many Gethsemane folks I was reminded that our neighborhoods look and feel very different than the community I grew up in.

Today, our neighbors speak a variety of languages, participate in traditions and celebrations that are unfamiliar to me, and call many different countries home. If we consider our neighbors to be only those who are similar to us we are at risk for missing many opportunities. Ignoring the demographic changes that are happening in our neighborhoods today won’t make the changes go away; instead it will cause us to shut doors, close ourselves off from community growth and create an insular environment for us to live.

It was very clear to me, as we sat around the tables in July and heard from our refugee and immigrant neighbors, that we need to keep sharing our stories with one another; we need to hear how people different than us experience our community and we need to share our stories and memories of a community with a history of working and playing together. When we learn about one another through our stories, our hopes, our fears and our expectations we can begin to work out new ways of being community that honors each of our stories.

Gethsemane needs to be part of these discussions, too, as we seek to be a neighborhood church in a neighborhood that looks very different than ever before. We have a long history of being a welcoming, hospitable church that has served our community for many, many years and we have the opportunity and responsibility before us now to discern new ways to be a church in our diverse community.

Gethsemane is hosting another opportunity to share our community stories. Mark your calendars for Neighbors United on Wednesday, August 10 at 7:00 pm. We will gather in the fellowship hall and hear from some of our neighbors: Kim Dettmer the director of LSS Refugee services, Jody de St Hubert. principal of Alice Smith Elementary, Jane Kono, director of Adult Options and Ann Buech, coordinator of the Blake Road Corridor Project.

And, as always, you’re encouraged to bring your neighbors too!

Where will the Spirit take you this Summer?

Are you going anywhere this summer? It’s a question we often get in casual conversation with everyone from a friend at work to the checker at the grocery store. It’s summer time and it seems everyone has plans to go somewhere; to the cabin, to the lake, to your relatives, or on a road trip to some great vacation destination. Our youth group is even going to Alaska; how cool is that?

I think we ask this question in part to hear about fun things others are doing and perhaps to live vicariously through them. Maybe we hope to get inspired and go someplace ourselves. After all, it feels great to be on the move and to be moved.

We are in the beginning of the season of Pentecost, the period when we celebrate God sending out his spirit so that all might hear of his mighty works through our lives. It is the specific work of the Holy Spirit to drive us out, to lead us on a collision course into the lives of others that need to hear a message of good news in their lives.

Rather than your vacations, I would love to know, where is the spirit leading you this summer? It might be to a place well known, not too far from home, or it might be across the country. I share with you this story in case if might inspire you.

The spirit led me to a small town in Iowa this summer. Not to a lake or a retreat center, but to a courthouse where a young man stood trial for a very serious crime. I felt led there because this young man is a child of God, confirmed in our church, and he needed someone to stand with him at a time when few others would. I felt led because he needed to be reminded that there is nothing that can separate him from the love of God in Jesus Christ. I felt led because his family needed to feel their community of faith surrounding them and praying for them in what was one of their darkest moments. I felt led because that is what the spirit does, where the spirit goes, not just on fun excursions but everywhere where someone needs to hear.

Where has the spirit led you this summer, and did you ever think it might have been for more than the great view? We are ambassadors for Christ, wherever we go, at Grandma’s and at the lake. We are ambassadors for Christ at the town pool and in the National Parks. We are ambassadors for Christ everywhere we go because we live in a world of fear and doubt where people yearn for what we have…hope.

So tell me, where are you going this summer? I want to hear about it and be inspired as you share how you lived out your faith in the remarkable and mundane locations of life.