St. John’s United Methodist Church

We can have hope in what is to come.

What is the message of the parable [of separating the sheep and goats]?…. It would seem to me that it would be, ‘we are all going to face judgement.’ Judgement is real. Now, that’s not a warm fuzzy way to end the church year, is it? No? We’ve been thru our celebrations and happy times, and we’ve been challenged with stuff. So why all of a sudden mess it all up and say, “Ok, folks, now you’re going to be judged!”……

This is the third of three Sundays of emphasis on Stewardship. Our theme is “Steps Along The Journey”, dealing with our membership vows of our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness.
“It was on the golf course in South Portland, many years ago, that “witness” first became important to me….”

“We’re in the second week of our Stewardship emphasis for this year. The theme of our emphasis is “Steps Along The Journey”. It is our home-grown version, mimicking what we had done three or four years ago with John Ed Mathison’s “Treasures of the Transformed Life”…. Prayers, and Presence, and Gifts, and Service… and Witness…”

All Saints Sunday falls for us on the Sunday when we begin our Stewardship emphasis [this year]. So it was interesting to think about the two at the same time. And the emphasis for us is “Steps Along The Path”; that’s the theme for our stewardship time this year. And we’re borrowing from John Ed Mathison’s [book] “Treasures of the Transformed Life”… Mathison centered his comments around those topics that are our membership vows: prayers, presence, gifts, and service…. and witness…..

Today is the final sermon in a series of three that we’ve been sharing together about St. John’s and discussions that we’ve been having for over two years now, about whether to become a Reconciling Congregation. Reconciling Congregations are United Methodist congregations which say intentionally to the gay and lesbian community that they are welcome here.

Second in a Series of Three Sundays
“Building Bridges” - Why become a Reconciling Congregation?

Two and a half or more years ago, we began a process at St. John’s as we set some new goals. They were challenging, and encouraging, and substantial… They covered lots of different topics.

One of the things that was placed there as one of our goals was to establish a committee to help our church go thru the process of deciding whether or not we could become a Reconciling Congregation… We’ve had the committee for over two years now… The process has been ongoing since that time…

(Ed.:)
What’s all this talk in the United Methodist Church about ‘perfection’? …..”going on to perfection”? Nobody can be ‘perfect’, so what are they talking about?

How many Methodists does it take to ….. change?