Happy Anniversary, Hartford UMC.
Our 2-year anniversary is July 1.
As we enter our third year of shared ministry I enter my 25th year of ordained ministry in the West Michigan Conference of The United Methodist Church. As an ordained Deacon I began serving Center Park UMC in 1989. I was ordained Elder in 1991. I am an introvert and therefore enjoy times of reflection. So I returned to a statement I wrote for Bishop Don Ott on the five-year anniversary of my Elder ordination:
Some of the most profound experiences of God's movement in my life have come during worship and especially while celebrating the sacraments. One memory of communion is particularly clear and, I believe, indicative of what the Realm of God is like. I visited an elderly widow of our congregation in a nursing home and brought her communion. It so happened that her three remaining sisters (one had recently died), all widows themselves, were visiting her at the same time. We were together in the room, I finished saying the prayer of thanksgiving, and was ready to share the bread and juice when one of the sisters remarked that this would be the first time since they were children that they would be having communion together. They had grown up, married, started their own families, and been active in different churches for all the intervening years. But on that day they were re-gathered around the bed of one of their sisters.
A related area of grace has been prayer time shared with other people. I have found a great freedom of expression in the spirit of prayer that I often cannot share in ordinary conversation. I have sensed this during prayer with members of the congregation in their homes and hospital rooms, and around their tables. I have known the power of prayer in the midst of tense and conflicted times when I have been given words of peace and compassion that I would not normally have. Times of meditation, silence, and contemplation are growing in importance for me as well.Bishop Ott concluded his invitation by asking what we believe "success" in ministry is:
In two words, I believe success is incarnation and communion. By that I mean that success in ministry involves an enduring vulnerability to God's presence in Christ through the Spirit and an openness to meeting other people where they are. The quality of that success is loving-justice, a term I used to describe the relational nature of the Kingdom of God in my theological paper for ordination. I am aware of the times that I have not risked offering hospitality or reaching out to persons in need because I did not want to get involved. I also know that when I have been open to God in contemplation, solitude, and Scriptural reflection, I have been led to greater depth of feeling and connection within myself and with others.I can witness that the means of grace really work. And I am grateful for your countless outward signs, words and actions that have conveyed God's grace to me and the Hartford community. Let's have an excellent third year of our shared journey with Christ, celebrate the many ways we are sustained by God's love, and move forward in ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit.
