6 EASTER GLORIA DEI, ANCHORAGE
APRIL 27, 2008 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
ACTS 17:22-31; PSALM 67; I PET 3:13-22; JOHN 14:15-21
A Word of Wisdom
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
By this, my ninth year as pastor here at Gloria Dei, you’ve come know me pretty well – my strengths and weaknesses, fortes and foibles, my aptitude and my eccentricities. I may, on occasion, mis-remember a meeting, or as happened a few years ago, forget something little…like receiving the offering at worship (that got the Church Council talking!). But I think most of you would agree that I’m been pretty down-to-earth and level-headed.
I say that to reinforce the idea that I’m not prone to hearing voices, seeing visions, looking for conspiracies or jumping to conclusions. Having said that, though, I must confess that I’m a little shaken by four different experiences that came together this week in a strange but wonderful way.
The first is the most innocuous, and happened just moments ago when we presented some children in the congregation with Bibles. No big deal. Every year around this time we give to our Second-graders a children’s Bible for Sunday School, and to our Sixth-graders a youth Bible for Confirmation. The message, we hope, is clear: we want our kids to read their Bibles and to carry God’s Word of love and grace into their families, schools and communities.
Experience number two: we Lutheran pastor-types here in Alaska, were wonderfully blessed by our state-wide gathering this week…we had good, inspirational speakers and lots of great fellowship.
As I told one of our presenters, a man by the name of Ken Innskeep, I’ve been known to leave a session early if it gets bogged down or boring…but you made me want to stay to hear what you had to say. Though his professional expertise as a sociologist played a significant role in his presentations, he was mostly engaging and inspiring…because of the way that he made connections between the Bible and our faith.
He addressed a few of the main reasons why some congregations are thriving and others are not. And, much to my delight, he didn’t try to sell us a magic bullet, a secret formula, or a pre-packaged program that promises to make us grow in numbers, get rich in dollars, or change the world if only we would follow steps a, b, and c…
Instead, his conclusions can be condensed into a couple of concrete concepts. Says Ken, research shows that congregations will thrive if they simply do two things well: read their Bibles, and carry God’s Word of love and grace into their families, their jobs, and their communities…are you sensing a theme here???
Experience number three: I was in my office on Thursday afternoon when Gloria Dei member Marilyn Anderson dropped by to say hello – she just returned from a wonderful trip to Australia to see her husband, David, who’s having a great time flying all over the place down under.
I asked Marilyn she’d found a church to worship at – it’s a great story and you should ask her to share it some time. But of all the wonderful things that congregation is doing, she mentioned two that kind of made me go hm… Anyone want to take a stab at what she said? They were reading their Bibles and carrying God’s Word of love and grace into their families, their jobs, and their communities.
Experience number four: Thursday evening, Julia and I, along with Pastor Ted Conter and Gloria Dei voting members Darla Siver and Hallee Starborn-Aguilar, gathered with the rest of the Alaska Synod to kick off our annual three-day assembly. We prayed, played and passed resolutions that are important to the lives of we Lutherans and, we hope, all people here in Alaska. Imagine my delight, and slight sense of dis-ease, when I read of a Resolution entitled, the Book of Faith Initiative. In short, it says:
WHEREAS (we) all… promise “to hear the Word of God and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ through word and deed”; and WHEREAS all parents and sponsors covenant to place the Holy Scriptures in the hands of their children and nurture them in faith and prayer…
BE IT RESOLVED that…(we) begin a regular practice of Bible study and prayer, gathering with others in (our) congregation and/or community to speak and hear the Word from one another…
In other words, we were committing our congregations to read the Bible and carry God’s Word of love and grace into our families, our jobs, and our communities. The resolution, I’m happy to say, passed unanimously…
Four times in four days…even I’m smart enough to recognize what I believe is a word of wisdom straight from God to you and to me. We’ve had a great start on the Bible this year with studies of the Old Testament book of Jonah, the New Testament book of Revelation and with the Gospel of Mark. I look forward to our continuing journey together as we dedicate ourselves to reading the Bible and carrying God’s Word into our community. Amen.