Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 15th, 2009 No Comments »
While last week’s Scripture passage used the analogy of Christ as the vine and we the branches, this week Pastor Phil warned against sloppy thinking, the trap of thinking God will do everything and we just need to hang on. Ephesians 4:11-16, 1 Timothy 4:7b-10, 14-16, Hebrews 5:14-6:2, 10-12, and 12:1-2, 11-15 are examples of the apostles exhorting the early church to strengthen its spiritual muscles. We do this best in the company of others who will encourage and support us as we grow. Training at the table makes space for God’s grace to produce growth. Phil gave the example of members of a small group supporting another group member to make his family a higher priority than his job. Phil suggested that an appropriate slogan for us might be, “Spiritual growth - don’t try this spiritual discipline at home alone.”
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Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 15th, 2009 No Comments »
While last week’s Scripture passage used the analogy of Christ as the vine and we the branches, this week Pastor Phil warned against sloppy thinking, the trap of thinking God will do everything and we just need to hang on. Ephesians 4:11-16, 1 Timothy 4:7b-10, 14-16, Hebrews 5:14-6:2, 10-12, and 12:1-2, 11-15 are examples of the apostles exhorting the early church to strengthen its spiritual muscles. We do this best in the company of others who will encourage and support us as we grow. Training at the table makes space for God’s grace to produce growth. Phil gave the example of members of a small group supporting another group member to make his family a higher priority than his job. Phil suggested that an appropriate slogan for us might be, “Spiritual growth - don’t try this spiritual discipline at home alone.”
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Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 8th, 2009 No Comments »
Membership Sunday is a favorite Sunday where our congregation accepts new people into fellowship and hears testimony from them. Pastor Phil Kniss said this, but then went on to say that he struggles with the idea of church membership. The struggle is about the dissonance between what scriptures like Matthew 18:15-22, Romans 12:3-5, 9-11, and Hebrews 10:15-22 sa, and how e live out church membership. The farther we get from table-sized groups, the more difficult it is to hold church membership to its true organic purpose. The challenge is to maintain accountability as a part of membership, not a rules-based accountability but accountability driven by love for other members. Can we keep accountability at a person to person level?
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Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 1st, 2009 No Comments »
As a part of the All Saints’ Day service, Pastor Phil Kniss reflected on the movement within church history to over-emphasize saints, giving them almost magical qualities. We do remember those who have gone on before us, and look to their example, but they were human, just like us. They lived ordinary lives made hallowed by the grace of God. We honor them by remembering them on All Saints’ Day, and we are reminded that we are all hallowed children of God. But we celebrate this day because it is a celebration of God’s grace that redeems our ordinary lives.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 25th, 2009 No Comments »
Sitting at the table on the stage at the front of the sanctuary with the worship leader and song leader, and sipping tea with them, Pastor Barbara Moyer Lehman used a conversational tone to talk about what it means to offer mutual care in the context of a community of communities. 1Thessalonians 5:12-22 was the text that she referenced, but she also called upon those sitting with her and on the congregation, to explore mutual care. The challenge at the end of the sermon was to reach out and get to know some new people and practice caring for each other.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 18th, 2009 No Comments »
Reading the Bible is like looking through a family photo album. It reminds us of who we are and where we come from. This is the image that Pastor Phil Kniss began his sermon with. Sometimes, when looking at old pictures we need help to understand what the picture is about. As we read the Bible we also need help in interpreting and understanding what it is that we are reading. Pastor Phil highlighted this as an essential task of the church, to read and understand and apply what is in the Bible. The best Biblical interpretation occurs where brothers and sisters come together to wrestle with understanding Scripture and referencing their interpretation with interpretations of the larger church. The two Scripture passages used in our service today, Nehemiah 8:1-12, and Luke 4:14-21, deal with this idea of God’s people hearing, understanding, and then applying God’s word.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 11th, 2009 No Comments »
We bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ through a wide variety of acts. One aspect often overlooked is the compelling witness of living together in Christian community. The challenge may lie in opening our lives to allow others a glimpse of HOW we live in Christian community. Pastor Phil Kniss challenged the congregation to practice hospitality and let go of our obsession with privacy.
Both Jeremiah 29:1, 4-8a and Luke 10:1-12 describe communities that went out of their way to practice and accept hospitality in the settings in which they lived. How can our life together as a community of Jesus followers be witnessed by people outside of the community? Can we create a third space, neither in church nor in our own smaller, closely knit communities, where others will feel welcomed to observe and perhaps join us?
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Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 4th, 2009 No Comments »
What might it mean for the church if we understand ourselves to be a community of smaller communities engaged in the mission of God in the world? This is the question that Pastor Phil Kniss posed on Sunday morning. If worship of God is at the center of our calling as Christians, how do we engage that worship in the context of our small groups? Why is communion only a part of our large group gatherings? In looking at the early church as described in Acts 2:42-47 and 1 Corinthians 10:15-17, Pastor Phil notes that these were groups that gathered around tables to worship, learn, and eat together. Perhaps we need to re-imagine our gatherings in small groups and use those times to worship and even to consider our eating together as a form of communion.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Sep 27th, 2009 No Comments »
Pastor Byron Pellecer and his family left Honduras and moved to Miami, and recently to Harrisonburg, VA, to be church planters. In Harrisonburg they are a part of the Mennonite Hispanic Initiative. They have come to help start a congregation of Spanish-speaking Christians.
Pastor Byron reminded us that we have 86,400 seconds in each day. God has called us to use those seconds to fulfill a mission in this world, to spread the Good News of God’s Kingdom. This is the day that God has given us. What are we going to do with it?
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Posted in Uncategorized on Sep 20th, 2009 No Comments »
1 Kings 19:1-18 relates the story of Elijah’s flight to the desert, fleeing King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. At Mt. Sinai, Elijah is given the opportunity to be in God’s presence, which comes not in the wind or earthquake or fire, but in the silence or still whispering.
How can we seek God’s face in a culture of noise? When and how do we find a time and a place for God? Pastor Barbara Moyer Lehman suggests that these times do not just happen. We have to plan for them, or the spaces fill up. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus offers us just such rest, the chance to listen to God’s voice.
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