March 13, 2016

Note: The congregation of First United Methodist Church received a report from its Healthy Church Initiative consulting team earlier in the service. That report identified five strengths and five concerns for this congregation’s future growth. Five recommendations were also part of this report, but these recommendations were shared at a potluck dinner following worship. You can learn more about the report and the process at the church’s website.

You’ve just heard the first two thirds of our Healthy Church Initiative Report. Reports like this always try to give you the good news first. I think that’s so you’ll be nice and comfortable, feeling good about yourself and relaxed before they sucker punch you with the bad news. But did any of these concerns sound insurmountable to you? Did any of them knock the wind out of you?

In our reading today from Isaiah, the prophet tells us that God is about to do a new thing. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old,” says the Lord. God is about to do a new thing for his people, the ones he claims as his own. God says these are “the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.” That’s our purpose in life: to declare God’s praise.

We do that through our strengths of hospitality, commitment to love and serve, spiritual leadership, things like Wednesday Night and NUMAS Haus that demonstrate our capacity to expand ministry, and even through this well-placed and well-maintained building.

But fulfilling our purpose to declare God’s praise takes more than identifying our strengths. In fact, relying on our own strength alone won’t get us where we need to be at all. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in his letter to the Philippians when he writes that he has more reason than anyone to be confident in the flesh, that is, confident in his own strength. Continue reading →