“MESSENGERS OF FAITH, LOVE AND HOPE”
Commissioning of Pastors for Youth Ministries, Maureen Louth & Jonathan Slater
October 16th, 2005
Ardith Frey [representing Leadership Commission of MCEC]
Text:
I Thessalonians 1: 1-10
Allow me to greet you with a paraphrase of Paul’s greeting to the church at Thessalonica.
To the Toronto United Mennonite Church
From my colleagues in the Leadership Commission of MCEC and Muriel Bechtel,
Minister of Pastoral Services.
“Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God for all of you, remembering before our God your steadfast labour in defining what it means to be a just and faithful Christian community, and in modeling love and hope to others as you work through difficult decisions with integrity to the gospel, and care for relationships.”
It feels especially important for me to recognize this today, after spending yesterday listening to Tony and Peggy Campolo speaking on the topic, “Is the Homosexual my neighbour?”, and to acknowledge the service that you have provided the wider church in demonstrating how to work through a decision when we do not necessarily agree. In this way you have truly been messengers of faith, love and hope.
This is a refrain that runs throughout Paul’s pastoral letter to the Thessalonians. This morning, as you commission new Pastors for Youth Ministry, receive new members and observe communion, I want to very briefly pick out three themes from the first chapter of I Thessalonians, the introduction of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, that have implications for the things you are celebrating this morning:
1. the mutuality of being messengers
2. embodying the message
3. empowerment for being messengers
It is interesting to note that Paul describes in several different ways the mutuality that exists in being messengers of the gospel. Firstly, he speaks of a reciprocity that exists between extending the gospel and receiving it. He suggests that the Thessalonian congregation created a receptive environment for the gospel message brought by Paul and Silas and Timothy. “They received it with joy.”
I know that I am a better preacher when people listen well, even though I also know that I have an obligation to prepare well and to have something interesting and relevant to say. But I am increasingly convinced that there is an unacknowledged but active relationship between good preaching and good listening.
More generally, there is mutuality between offering and receiving gifts within the church. Today, in commissioning Maureen and Jonathan as Pastors for youth ministries, you are setting them apart for specialized roles of ministry. But Jonathan and Maureen will only be able to exercise these roles to the extent that you are actively receptive to their ministry, that you are actively receptive to their ministry.
But it is not only pastors like Jonathan and Maureen, or missionaries like Paul who are messengers of the gospel. Paul describes how the Thessalonian church became active stewards of the message by sharing it with others. Ministry belongs to all of us. The role of called – apart ministers is to equip all of us as members to live out our faith within our own vocational callings. That leads us to the second theme.
Paul talks about the embodied nature of the message. The message is not only spoken. It is lived. Paul describes this in numerous ways about the Thessalonians; their work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in Jesus Christ, their becoming an example to believers beyond Thessalonica in their reputation for being a welcoming community and turning away from false worship to serve the living God.
How we enflesh the message is perhaps even more important than the words we use. We are reminded of that by the expression coined my Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message”
Did you notice how one of the examples given by Paul of embodying the gospel message was becoming a welcoming community? When I was interim pastor at Hamilton Mennonite Church this past year, I met a foreign university student who was first attracted to the church because of the sign posted outside that said, “Welcome to All”. She was looking for ways to practice her English, and she stayed and became a regular participant because she found the words to be true; she found that the message proclaimed outside was embodied in the life of the congregation.
There’s another thing that Paul says about embodiment. More experienced Christians model the message for less experienced ones. Paul describes how he and other missionary leaders were models for new converts who imitated them in living out the gospel message. I think that modeling the message may be especially relevant in youth ministry, a phase of life where faith is often “caught” more than “taught”; where example may have more impact than words. And in MCEC, we also have a mentoring program for new pastors. Maureen and Jonathan will be hearing about that, if they haven’t already.
Recognizing how the message needs to be embodied in our lives and how we all have a responsibility in this, we will be signing a covenant of ethical behavior as part of our commissioning today. This will be signed by Jonathan and Maureen, your new pastors, by Doug Pritchard on behalf of your congregation, and by me, representing Mennonite Church Eastern Canada.
Pastors are called to walk with people during vulnerable times in their lives and spiritual journey. They agree to observe professional ethical guidelines regarding confidentiality, truth telling, sexual behavior and other boundaries, and respecting the work of other leaders. As a congregation we agree to support our pastors so that their ministry is a joy and not a burden. We commit to pray for them and support them in their work, encouraging them to take time to study, play, and pray. As a conference, we will work with the leaders of the local congregation in times of transition, crisis or review, respecting both the pastor’s needs and the congregation’s process.
Embodying the message may feel like a tall order to both pastors and congregations at times. The good news is that we are not left to our own devices. Paul’s letter is filled with reminders that at the core of the message and at the center of being messengers is an empowering presence; the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to be receptive and active agents of the gospel, the living God whom we serve, and the hope provided by the example of Jesus who walked the same journey we do, who died and was raised from the dead. It is because we have a living example of the message in our midst that we can be communities of faith, love and hope.
May this become fresh and new to us this morning as we celebrate the presence of our risen Lord through communion. May it become embodied as we walk the journeys of our daily living, and as we break bread together in our communal gatherings.
May God richly bless you as a community of faith as you endeavor to embody the message of faith, love and hope.
Amen.
“MESSENGERS OF FAITH, LOVE AND HOPE”
Commissioning of Pastors for Youth Ministries, Maureen Louth & Jonathan Slater
October 16th, 2005
Ardith Frey [representing Leadership Commission of MCEC]
Text:
I Thessalonians 1: 1-10
Allow me to greet you with a paraphrase of Paul’s greeting to the church at Thessalonica.
To the Toronto United Mennonite Church
From my colleagues in the Leadership Commission of MCEC and Muriel Bechtel,
Minister of Pastoral Services.
“Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God for all of you, remembering before our God your steadfast labour in defining what it means to be a just and faithful Christian community, and in modeling love and hope to others as you work through difficult decisions with integrity to the gospel
, and care for relationships.”
It feels especially important for me to recognize this today, after spending yesterday listening to Tony and Peggy Campolo speaking on the topic, “Is the Homosexual my neighbour?”, and to acknowledge the service that you have provided the wider church in demonstrating how to work through a decision when we do not necessarily agree. In this way you have truly been messengers of faith, love and hope.
This is a refrain that runs throughout Paul’s pastoral letter to the Thessalonians. This morning, as you commission new Pastors for Youth Ministry, receive new members and observe communion, I want to very briefly pick out three themes from the first chapter of I Thessalonians, the introduction of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, that have implications for the things you are celebrating this morning:
1. the mutuality of being messengers
2. embodying the message
3. empowerment for being messengers
It is interesting to note that Paul describes in several different ways the mutuality that exists in being messengers of the gospel. Firstly, he speaks of a reciprocity that exists between extending the gospel and receiving it. He suggests that the Thessalonian congregation created a receptive environment for the gospel message brought by Paul and Silas and Timothy. “They received it with joy.”
I know that I am a better preacher when people listen well, even though I also know that I have an obligation to prepare well and to have something interesting and relevant to say. But I am increasingly convinced that there is an unacknowledged but active relationship between good preaching and good listening.
More generally, there is mutuality between offering and receiving gifts within the church. Today, in commissioning Maureen and Jonathan as Pastors for youth ministries, you are setting them apart for specialized roles of ministry. But Jonathan and Maureen will only be able to exercise these roles to the extent that you are actively receptive to their ministry, that you are actively receptive to their ministry.
But it is not only pastors like Jonathan and Maureen, or missionaries like Paul who are messengers of the gospel. Paul describes how the Thessalonian church became active stewards of the message by sharing it with others. Ministry belongs to all of us. The role of called – apart ministers is to equip all of us as members to live out our faith within our own vocational callings. That leads us to the second theme.
Paul talks about the embodied nature of the message. The message is not only spoken. It is lived. Paul describes this in numerous ways about the Thessalonians; their work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in Jesus Christ, their becoming an example to believers beyond Thessalonica in their reputation for being a welcoming community and turning away from false worship to serve the living God.
How we enflesh the message is perhaps even more important than the words we use. We are reminded of that by the expression coined my Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message”
Did you notice how one of the examples given by Paul of embodying the gospel message was becoming a welcoming community? When I was interim pastor at Hamilton Mennonite Church this past year, I met a foreign university student who was first attracted to the church because of the sign posted outside that said, “Welcome to All”. She was looking for ways to practice her English, and she stayed and became a regular participant because she found the words to be true; she found that the message proclaimed outside was embodied in the life of the congregation.
There’s another thing that Paul says about embodiment. More experienced Christians model the message for less experienced ones. Paul describes how he and other missionary leaders were models for new converts who imitated them in living out the gospel message. I think that modeling the message may be especially relevant in youth ministry, a phase of life where faith is often “caught” more than “taught”; where example may have more impact than words. And in MCEC, we also have a mentoring program for new pastors. Maureen and Jonathan will be hearing about that, if they haven’t already.
Recognizing how the message needs to be embodied in our lives and how we all have a responsibility in this, we will be signing a covenant of ethical behavior as part of our commissioning today. This will be signed by Jonathan and Maureen, your new pastors, by Doug Pritchard on behalf of your congregation, and by me, representing Mennonite Church Eastern Canada.
Pastors are called to walk with people during vulnerable times in their lives and spiritual journey. They agree to observe professional ethical guidelines regarding confidentiality, truth telling, sexual behavior and other boundaries, and respecting the work of other leaders. As a congregation we agree to support our pastors so that their ministry is a joy and not a burden. We commit to pray for them and support them in their work, encouraging them to take time to study, play, and pray. As a conference, we will work with the leaders of the local congregation in times of transition, crisis or review, respecting both the pastor’s needs and the congregation’s process.
Embodying the message may feel like a tall order to both pastors and congregations at times. The good news is that we are not left to our own devices. Paul’s letter is filled with reminders that at the core of the message and at the center of being messengers is an empowering presence; the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to be receptive and active agents of the gospel, the living God whom we serve, and the hope provided by the example of Jesus who walked the same journey we do, who died and was raised from the dead. It is because we have a living example of the message in our midst that we can be communities of faith, love and hope.
May this become fresh and new to us this morning as we celebrate the presence of our risen Lord through communion. May it become embodied as we walk the journeys of our daily living, and as we break bread together in our communal gatherings.
May God richly bless you as a community of faith as you endeavor to embody the message of faith, love and hope.
Amen.