Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan
A Challenge of Vitality
The other day Deb (our Director of Children’s Ministry) and I were talking and celebrating a great September at EPUMC. We’ve had something of an influx of families with younger children. This has meant enough new kids around that we had to add a Sunday School class. This in turn means that Deb gets to find more teachers. Deb is the best at this and so as we talked, both of us laughed because we realized that we were discussing The New Challenges of Vitality at EPUMC.
Each one of us on staff has talked about these new challenges of vitality at one time or another, and we think it is great. We feel it is what a lot of people call a blessing and that it is something to be celebrated…especially because we believe that along with the challenge of vitality will come a response from a sense of vitality.
A few months ago I was talking about this using the phrase “passion, not obligation.” By that I meant that when any of us responds to even the most mundane need less out of “somebody has to do this” and more out of (what I’ve been hearing a lot of lately )…. “I can do that…” then great things happen.
This acting out of passion, not obligation is contagious, and it is creating even more vitality at EPUMC. Last night I saw someone I would have never dreamed of staffing the nursery along with Elicia. By the way, did you know that we need at least two people in the nursery on WEDNESDAY NIGHTS because we have so many young families participating in choir. If that isn’t a challenge of vitality, I don’t know what is.
We’ve had to take more time in staff meetings to coordinate the use of the fellowship hall on Wednesday nights, because we have all kinds of people coming at 6 to hang out together. If you haven’t checked it out…and have been around here for a while…it’s like the soup suppers, without the soup but with the people.
Here is something else…. Coffee in the narthex has been, forgive me for this, a HUGGGEE success. Being a coffee drinker and knowing other coffee drinkers, my guess is that if we stop doing this we will have some questioning hearts during worship and it won’t be about the love of God in Jesus Christ. The coffee will be there this Sunday, but I’m still trying to figure out how and who will help make sure this keeps happening.
Now I am not trying to say that we do not have some other, less appealing challenges in front of us….we certainly do. The point is that I want to encourage us to respond to them with the same sense of vitality as we face these other challenges.
In the Bible Jesus is constantly reminding his disciples that they have all that is needed to be about the work of proclaiming the good news of faith. Its not just a few pep talks Jesus gives…Jesus isn’t a motivational speaker…he is a life giver. And when we respond to our challenges in life with the faith that God will provided what is needed we experience the new life, the vitality in life…. Jesus promised.
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan
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