M and M - Ministry and Mission
1 Peter 2:9-10

by Pastor Eldon Reich

Family reunions, don’t you love them.

That’s what this service reminds me of.

When family gets together:

8:30 Aunts and Uncles  (lets have you stand.)

9:35 Cousins, (stand)

10:45 sisters and brothers.

and the11:00 black sheep. (stand)

Its good to be able to recognize just who we are in theFirst Church family.

Did you hear about the woman who volunteered

to perform a parachute jump for charity.

On our first day of training, the instructor

made an important point about preparing for landing at 300 feet.
One woman asked "How do you know when you're at 300 feet?"
"A good question," replied the instructor.

"At 300 feet you can recognize the faces of people on the ground."
The woman thought about this for awhile before saying,

"What happens if there's no one there I know?"

Can you recognize what is 750,000 miles long,

Reaches around the earth 30 times,

and grows 20 miles longer each day?
The line of people who are without Christ.

Since 1991 The population of Adults who do not attend church in theUnited States,

has nearly doubled, and is increasing at an alarming rate.

And that is true also inAberdeen.

That’s why about a year ago we gathered for a Family Dinner-

To kick off our Growing in fellowship campaign that began

Our commitment to build a Community Life Center

to move our church into the future with more

Ministry Opportunity and Mission outreach.,

Let me share with you what our

COMMUNITY LIFE CENTER is all about in our future ministry and mission.

FIRST OF ALL THE COMMUNITY LIFE CENTER WILL STAND FOR

I. COMMUNITY

“But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people.  I Peter 2:9 message

1. We are chosen—by God to be people of the Covenant community

People are chosen when there is a game to be played a task to be done

We all like to be chosen.

To be thought special.

God choose you and everything else in your life is colored by that.

We are chosen

2. We are chosen for a ministry

The high calling of priestly work.

To welcome and encourage one another

To be hospitable to the stranger, patient with the orphan,

Clothe the naked, rehabilitate the prisoner.

Comfort the weary and wounded of this world.

That’s priestly work.

3. We are chosen for a mission ---to be a holy people

Holy people have holy mission

And holy lives.

And holy families.

All of us struggle with sin in this world.

Slide    Our belief is affected by : friends, church, bible, thought

But we are also affected by Newspaper, media, Television and internet.

No wonder the human heart is a veritable factory of idols,

So the gospel must be filtered through

How we work, pray, play, live, serve and give in mission together.

A group of tourists were visiting the Empire State Building in New York. On the elevator ride to the 102nd floor, a nervous woman asked, "What if these cables should break? Would we go up or down?"  The guide said, "That depends entirely on the kind of life you’ve been leading."

Were to live holy lives.

Matt. 12:25 “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”
We must be a holy people.

A people of community.

COMMUNITY LIFE CENTER

II. LIFE

1 Peter 2:9-10 (Message Bible)—“But you are the ones chosen by God… God’s instruments to do His work and speak out for Him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference He made for you—from nothing to something, ”-Message bible

There is no other organization in the world.

No service club, or fraternity, or business

That has been commission like the church,

to reach the world for Christ.

Bumper stickers, banners, highway signs, clothing, jewelry won’t do it.

If were going to reach people

Vs. 10 says; “We must in some way tell them of the night and day difference Jesus made for you. From nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.

LIFE

L-LIFT –

People need a lift.

Our New COMMUNITY LIFE CENTER WILL HAVE a new elevator.

That’s going to be very good for our seniors and handicapped.

The lift I’m talking about is a LIFT FROM GOD.

God is LIFT, BECAUSE GOD IS LOVE .

Slide    Did David quote Joseph when he said:

Psalms 40:2 God liveted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire: He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

We lift people up when we help people discover God loves them.

When we help them discover How to love themselves again,

We lift people when we help them to pray.

Help them to believe.

When we help them walk through the storm of sickness, and cancer.

Loss of job or beginning a new adventure.

We are to prepare people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  Eph. 4:12-13

L-LIFT

I-INSPIRATION-   

Our people need inspiration.

We need to see people as God sees them.

91 ladies attended the women’s retreat

and were inspired together as they heard

the testimony of what God is doing in the lives of five women.

We can inspire one another.

If were but willing to share.

Booker T. Washington said, “You cannot hold a man down without staying down with him.” But when you help a man stand up you have to stand up with him.

We have people asking the question

Why do we need more space in worship.

We already have room in all our worship services.

Well the reason we have room is that

a couple of years ago when we had three there wasn’t enough room.

Church growth statistics prove:

When your 80% full people stop coming.

We have room because we have been willing to risk moving out and forward.

And adding a 4^th service with a modern contemporary flavor.

Our Church members in 19OOs were inspired and choose to remain downtown.

1960’s built an education wing

Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to have 10 adult classes.

And over 400 in Sunday school.

But those fore parents were visionaries:

Our goal is to move our growing MOC service

to the new Community life center where we

can connect with each other in shared gathering and welcoming space.

I-INSPIRATION

F- FELLOWHSIP with one another.

Not just to worship together,

But a place to laugh and cry,

A place to play, sing, and eat of the joy of life.

Acts 2:45, “Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.”

You will not find more fellowship then in our yearly rummage sale and style show

Looking forward to more space as they reach out to the community.

I ASK THREE THINGS OF OUR NEW MEMBERS

They come to worship regularly.

They tithe

They join one other small group.

Group fellowship is where the healing takes place.

Parents must know that our fellowship is a safe place.

That our Church  is a safe sanctuary for all ages.

Our Education department Screens:  all employees and volunteer

We Supervise : all classes seek to have two person unrelated working with

Youth and children.

We concerned for SAFETY  thanks to our trustee who recently had window installed in all classroom doors to provide sight for youth and children activities.

Our Community life center is also a place of  FELLOWSHIP

E- EXERCISE – Not only for the spirit,

but to keep the body whole and healthy. 

Peter writes:  we are chosen for  a purpose—to be priests and a holy people
instruments of God—to do His work and to speak out for Him—His witnesses
to proclaim the Good News—to give our testimony of the changes He has done in our lives

We exercise our bodies to exercise the right

to use our mouth to tell of Gods good news.

Carol’s Heart and Soul Aerobics reaches more then

70 persons for weekly exercise in a borrowed facilities.

Soon we will host this ministry in our CLC.

Alone with family volleyball and basketball.

The grasshopper on the fence

makes more noise than the ox in the field!
But the ox does the work!

The Church should be the place where we can

work and exercise out our salvation and that of our neighbor.

COMMUNITY LIFE CENTER

III.  CENTER

That means we must be CENTERED IN CHRIST.

I Corinthians 2:2 For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Phil1:21 For me to live is Christ an to die is gain.

Brothers and sisters, the world is fractured,

but we must not be!

We must do all we can to witness to God’s saving words and deed.

We must join in the struggle for justice and human dignity,

We must join in the obligation to denounce

all that hinders human wholeness

To do that we must stay centered.

Children are centered they are focused no matter what.

A pastor was taking his five year old son to McDonald's one day

For a burger. On the way they passed a car accident. 

Usually when they saw something terrible like that,

They would we say a prayer for those who might be hurt,

So the father pointed and said to his son.

"We should pray."

From the back seat he heard this earnest request:

"Please, God, don't let those cars block the entrance to McDonald's."

If Bob Downie is tuning 100 pianos at Northern.

You will discover that every piano has the same pitch.

A middle c is a c.

How can he do that?

He can do it because all one hundred pianos are tuned to the same tuning fork.

That results in them automatically tuned to each other.

Christ is our tuning fork.

We are the pianos in God’s hand to make music in the world.

That’s why Community

Is made up of UNITY.

COMM- UNITY

There is a lot of talk about unity.

But do we have it?

A man asked the preacher,

 “How many active members do you have in your church?”

The preacher said, “They’re all active.  Unity in action!

Half of them are working with me and half of them are working against me.”

Disunity in the church is a scandal.

And many of our mainline denominations

Including United Methodist church today are crippled by scandal.

Because we stop too soon at unity with any ideologues, or philosophies.

The reason Jesus gave us for our unity was that the world may:

Believe in Jesus Christ,

that he was sent by the father

To be the savior of humankind and all creation. John 17:21-23

There is only one source of unity in the church;

JESUS CHRIST.

OurCOMMUNITY LIFE CENTER WILL

Only bring life, CENTERED AROUND JESUS CHRIST.

That means that every part of our live and our church

Should be used for the sole purpose

of making fully devoted follower of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Whether it’s the gym,

The Kitchen,

The offices,

Fellowship area

Preschool, or Nurseries.

Or the sanctuary

and worship areas.

That is what we are about.

If we can get our youth and children to center first on Christ.

To put Him in the heart

We can focus their wholes lives.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33

You are all going to get a bag of M&M’s when you leave.

Because FIRST UMC is looking for people

To become involved in MINISTRY AND MISSION.

The process for equipping is:

1. I do it; (Modeling-)
2. I do it and you’re with me (mentoring)
3. You do it and I am with you (monitoring)
4. You do it (multiplying)
5. We all do it together that (Miracling)

Would you join me in year two of our campaign

Not only with your prayers and your presence

But YOUR PLEADGES AND SERVICES

As we see the Miracle of bringing the

COMMUNITY LIFE CENTER into its purpose

of Mission outreach and Ministry opportunity.

Enjoy your M & M’s

MINISTRY AND MISSION

Lord, send us forth today committed to Unity in the body of Christ.

Let us reaffirm Jesus Christ as our center.

And God’s people as our family.

Here are First Untied Methodist Church.

As we seek to fulfill your will for our community.

In Jesus name I pray.

Amen.