“Thanksgiving, Love, and Prayers”
Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:3-11
Sermon Transcript for January 8, 2006
By Rev. Mike Beck
I’m sure these numbers aren’t exactly right but they are close: 52 weddings, 106 baptisms, 447 new members, 42 funerals, and something like 1,030 worship services…and then it finally comes down to your final two weekends. I want to share with you a moment this morning a little thing of thanksgiving, love, and prayers, some of the things I remember most and some things I am most thankful for. In terms of what I remember, it’s not the extensive remodeling that we did in 2000 or the new Education Wing that we built in 2003, although it was a great privilege to provide some leadership in those two endeavors. They are going to serve this church for generations to come. I remember those, but that’s not the main thing.
I’ll certainly remember our worship services where my spirit felt the presence of God in this place. If you didn’t feel the presence of God during that choir anthem this morning you need to check your pulse. You are either physically dead and you don’t know it or your spiritually dead. But the worship services aren’t what I’ll remember most.
I’m very thankful for the honors that have bestowed on Grace Church, but that is not what I’ll remember most although they needed those honors. Thinking of the caliber of person that was appointed to succeed me here at Grace, all of you need to remember often the position of leadership that you hold within this Annual Conference.
But mostly I will remember the persons who in some small way I was able to help grow spiritually. We know a lot of things, but friends, ultimately there are two things we are called to do. One, reach the lost, and two, make disciples. Those two things. You can serve persons in your neighborhood that haven’t yet come to know Christ and reach out to them. And then once a person has come to the saving faith in Christ, that’s just the beginning of the journey. We are called to make disciples.
I have received some wonderful cards and e-mails the last few weeks. I want to just share three of those with you as illustrations of what I’ll remember most. The words on this card were appropriate. The outside says, “I believe we are here for a reason as each day enfolds, we see less of the shadow and more of the sun.” But then this person reached out, part of our staff writes, “Dear Reverend Mike, I want to thank you for your welcoming spirit for the first time the kids and I stepped foot into Grace and our whole family. Thank you for seeing in me what I couldn’t see myself and prodding me to step out of my comfort zone. I appreciate and thank you for your encouragement, your guidance, your teaching, and your leaning.”
And then I received this letter which I cherish from a gentleman in this church who has become a good friend. And he simply writes, “Reverend Mike, you inspired me to go beyond myself and seek the getting of what I had to offer without concern of myself to God. You gave me the most meaningful best password I’ve ever had—joyJesusothersyou—in that order. Thank you for the profound influence you have had on my quest to becoming a good Christian.
And then there is a young couple who have now moved to positions of leadership here at Grace, that I received an e-mail from. Friends, many of us have been a part of the church all of our life. And if that is true for you, thank God for that. But those of us who have been a part of church all of our life, are inclined to think every one has had that experience. This young couple had started to attend Grace and following a Maundy Thursday Communion service down in Price Hall this gal came up to me and she said, “Reverend Mike, I have never experienced that before. That was awesome.” And she writes, “When my husband and I started coming to Grace, it was a huge leap of faith for me to take the Disciple Bible Study class. I knew no one in the church and my husband wasn’t able to take it with me.” But then listen to this. This is what God calls all of us to do. “But I put my faith in God which was also new to me and I signed up. And that was the start of my walk with Christ and my relationship began to bloom with love for God.”
That’s what I remember most. I remember those special moments when I had the privilege to share with probably two-thirds of the people hearing my voice this morning as you gave me the privilege and invited me in to share with you some of the most difficult and some of the most sacred moments of your life. For some of you it was days of illness and pain or times of grief and loss or times when life for you had become confusing and hopes seemed to be lost. You weren’t sure if the sun would ever come out again. And you gave me the privilege to share with you in those times. And I want to thank you for what you taught me about the reality and the sufficiency of God’s grace as I saw it evidenced in what you were going through. I remember many joyous moments that we shared together: births, baptisms, confirmation classes, weddings, anniversaries.
Friends, it is those kinds of moments that make this calling to the pastoral ministry one of the greatest joys and privileges that a person could ever have. And if you talk to my wife, you will know that I went to seminary kicking and screaming all the way confident that I didn’t have what was needed to be a pastor, not wanting to be a pastor. But I had to go to seminary to get God off my back and prove Him wrong so I could go back to the school business. Well, God as always knew what He was doing. John Winteregg asked me a question shortly after I made the decision to have the surgeries. John said, “Mike, just tell me why you are doing this?” And I said, “Well, John, the accumulative affect of now dealing with multiple dystonias although the average person may not see it. It’s just utterly exhausting and the quality of life and the joy of so much and the joy of doing ministry isn’t there anymore. I want to enjoy my grandkids.” In fact, if you want to stay for the 11:00 p.m. service today, the most beautiful little girl in the world is going to be here. I have the privilege of doing her dedication. But I told John, I said, “Equally important, I love what I do. And I discovered that maybe God gave me some gifts to do. And I want to be able to do it for another 10-12 years. And that’s why I am headed down this road.” Although Faye Petro, when I notified her, she send me an e-mail back and told me how much she had appreciated our leadership and that we would be missed. But she said, “Now, Mike, it’s important when we are going through tough times to maintain a sense of humor. So here is my question, “Isn’t this a rather radical step to be able to spend the winter in Phoenix?”
I like what I do and I pray that the time will come next year that your pastor will invite me back for one more time to preach restored in health to this congregation we love so much. I don’t have many regrets for my time here at Grace, but one regret that I want to put before you as a challenge is this—in years that I was at my previous church, God called down six persons into full-time Christian ministry. That hasn’t happened here at Grace during the eight years I have been with you. And you need to pray that God will do that among you. Bishop Coyner when he was asked back to a church in Ft. Wayne where he had pastured to dedicate a new “Sending Wall”. It was a wall in the church that contained pictures of close to twenty people who had literally been part of that church that were now in full-time Christian service. And he said every church ought to have a Sending Wall and they ought to be praying that God will call young people, that God will call second-career persons into full-time ministry.
I want to say a word of thanks to those of you who live at the Franklin United Methodist Community. Now in a humorous note, I will say that having a community like that as a part of your church makes the job of pastor a little tricky because almost every other week you have new residents that have moved in. They come to your church; they have been a part of the church for 50 years or more. And they are thoroughly convinced that they way they’ve done church is the way church ought to be done and so that kind of makes pastoring Grace Church a little tricky at times. But I will remember the privilege that Grace Church provides its pastor of being able to get to know some of the truly great saints of the church, both clergy and lay, who live at that wonderful community. I can not even dare to start to name names, but I am looking out at some people here this morning who I knew your spouse and what I saw in terms of their love and commitment to Christ and the way they lived their life and the way they served God faithfully is indelibly printed upon my heart. And that’s a marvelous gift to be able to receive.
I remember what God has done here in the area of missions. Very shortly in our new Education wing, you’ll find large pictures of Bethlehem Bible College and the Humble Place in Africa where you made significant investments in their building program at the same time we built here. And although we have done a marvelous job of giving of our financial resources, I would challenge you. I think the next step is to have a greater degree of hands-on involvement. This year you had a chance to be a part of a group going to Uganda, to Redbird Mission. There are some of you that ought to be a part of our hurricane work team. Our Hands-On Mission team is getting personally involved with CareNet, with Brightwood Community Center. On your hands, in terms of mission, in addition to the task of the dollars that you give, are there some tears and some calluses because you’ve got involved in missions in a hands-on way?
I want to thank you for your openness to new people, for your willingness to allow them to assume important positions of leadership within the church. There are a lot of places where if you haven’t been a part of the church for thirty years there is no way you’d be considered to be a part of the Trustees or the Pastor/Parish Committee. That hasn’t been true here at Grace. In fact, I would like for all of those persons who were not attending Grace Church when I first came in 1997, I want you to stand now and remain standing for just a moment. If you were not here when I preached my first sermon, would you stand? Now remain standing because I want to say a word of thanks for you who are sitting. Your welcome, your caring spirit is why they stayed. And I am thankful to God for that. You may be seated.
And I want to thank you for your openness to change. Change isn’t easy for anybody but without change we die. And very rarely did I hear the words here at Grace that other pastors hear almost on a daily basis. You haven’t said, “We’ve never done it that way.” You’ve said, “Maybe we ought to give that a try,”
Thanksgiving, and then secondly, love. It has been an emotional struggle for Mickey and me in recent weeks just as many of you have felt sadness at our leaving. But for any tears that are shed there is certainly a reminder of the bonds of love that we share in Jesus Christ. We will miss you; we love you. You have been family to us. You have overlooked my shortcomings and weaknesses and mistakes. And those bonds of love will not end just because Mickey and I are no longer one of your pastoral families. Bonds continue. In fact, Doreen and Doris Bowman have been a part of my church in Greensburg. And they moved to the Community and started attending here. And my very first secretary, Sandy, and her husband and a couple from the church in Greensburg are here today. Bonds of love continue.
And, friends, I was thrilled when I learned who had been appointed to follow me here at Grace. In fact, I was rather humbled. You ought to be reminded of how the Conference views this congregation. You are looked upon by the Bishop and the Cabinet as one of the flagship churches in this conference. To have a person appointed who has served as Director of our Conference Council of Ministries, who has served as a District Superintended, who has been dearly loved at every church that he has pastured. Bob Coleman is a strong, but he is a gentle, caring leader. And you are getting a wonderful partner in ministry in his wife, Joyce. In fact, Bob was my District Superintendent in Corydon and Bob Coleman was one of the reasons that I was appointed to Grace Church! Let me tell you the story. It was January, 1997, and I was on my way to make a hospital call in Louisville. Dan Sinkhorn was part of my church, in fact, called to ministry. And I stopped by the District office to lobby with Bob Coleman that he ought to send Dan to Lanesville and Camden, which he did, because I thought it would be a good thing. And Bob asked me how things were going and I said, “Bob, they are going great.” But I made the comment, “But I suppose at some point I’ll be ready for moving.” Wayne Hess, a former district superintendent, Wayne I learned a lesson that day. If you’ve been at a church more than six years, you don’t even breathe a word to your District Superintendent that you are open to a move. Two weeks later my phone rang and I was asked if we would consider coming to Grace. And it was interesting, my family was all in Indy and that’s part of the reason Bob Coleman is excited about coming to Grace. His family is up here. We would often come back and visit with family and we would drive by the Franklin exit and my wife would say to me, “Well, whatever comes, fine but it would be just fine with me if they moved us to Franklin Grace.” When I called her she was with her sister in Illinois that weekend and I said, “Honey, if they can put up with a preacher who can’t talk, then I think we are going to Franklin.” She said, “You are not suppose to get what you ask for.” But I ask you all to love Bob and Joyce in the same wonderful way that you have loved Mickey and me.
Thanksgiving, love, and prayers. It is on that note that I want to end this message today. But I will be back next weekend. It is your prayers that have made this a great church. It’s been your prayers that have allowed God to bless my ministry among you, despite the physical problems. It is your prayers that have opened doors for the procedures out at Mayo that have the potential to bring renewed quality of life and to allow me again to return to active ministry. It is your prayers that are going to sustain Mickey and me during the upcoming surgeries and four months away from home. Now a sidelight, pray for me; but my wife needs your prayers more for the thought of leaving that new granddaughter for four months is right now a little bit more than she can handle. Keep praying! It’s the foundation of the church; it’s the foundation of our individual lives.
And I want to leave you today with these words of the Apostle Paul as he prayed for his dear friends at the church in Philippi. He said, “I thank my God every time I remember you. And all of my prayers for all of you I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Be in confidence this that He who began a good work in you will carry on to completion in the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way and bound to argue since I have you in my heart. Forever I am in chains and defending it firmly in the gospel, all of you share in God’s ways with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Jesus Christ. And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth and insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the days of Christ filled with the brew of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” Amen.
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