Tag: Mission

The Mission Field at Our Doorstep

This reflection is about an epiphany from one of the saints I have known, Marjorie B. Lester. I became Marjorie’s pastor at Houston’s Bering Memorial Church in January of 1978 when she was 95 years old. Marjorie was born in Kentucky in 1882. Her father was murdered when Marjorie was not quite 5 years old. She married when she was 15, bore three children, and was widowed at the age of 46. Somehow, in the early years of her marriage, she managed to study law and was the second woman admitted to the bar in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Around 1910, the Lester’s moved to Texas, first to Hardeman County, then to Corpus Christi. She told me that following the death of her husband she moved to Houston to take a position in charge of corporate records for United Gas Pipeline, which position she held until her retirement in 1947. After retirement, Marjorie devoted much of her time, talent, and energy to programs for seniors. In 1957, she was appointed to the Governor’s Committee on Aging and in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed her to the White House Conference on Aging. She died at the age of 101.

It was my first time to serve as a senior pastor and she was in many ways a mentor to me as she had been for pastors who preceded me. In October of my first year at Bering, our stewardship campaign theme was “Open the Doors.” The pledge cards were printed and folded to resemble the main doors of the church. On the Sunday members were asked to complete their pledge cards and bring them to the Altar, Marjorie raised her walking cane in the air and asked to say a few words to the congregation. She came to the front of the nave, stood facing those who were gathered there, leaned on her cane, and challenged everyone to give generously. She concluded her remarks by pointing to the doors of the church with that cane and saying, “The Apostle Paul would be envious of the mission field at our doorstep.” She then returned to her pew and sat down. 60% of the pledge cards turned in that morning had the original numbers erased or crossed out and higher amounts filled in!

Marjorie’s closing words rang in my ears for the remaining eight years I served in that place and they have remained with me ever since. It became my practice at the end of the service to invite worshipers to turn and face the door of the church for the Dismissal. From there, through the door of the church, near the Baptismal Font if possible, and with the Book of the Gospels in my hands, having been nourished by Word and Sacrament, I send Christ's followers into “the mission field at our doorstep.”

Above the Choir in the front of that church is a stained glass window I have never especially liked. It is a poor representation of William Holman Hunt’s famous painting of Jesus “The Light of the World” knocking on a door. In Hunt’s painting, there is no latch on the door, the implication being that it must be opened from the inside. However, in this particular window, there is a huge latch right there in front of Jesus. I could never reconcile the window with what I believed about the way Jesus enters our lives.

Until recently! A story shared by Bishop Scott Mayer in a sermon at the Ordination of Deacons provided the very insight I needed. It was a story told by a Roman Catholic Cardinal, Blasé Cupich of Chicago – a story about the days leading up to the Conclave to choose the current Pope. In the days leading up to the Conclave, it is their practice for the gathered Cardinals to deliver addresses designed to help their colleagues discern where the Holy Spirit is calling the Church.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina took his turn and remarked that, “In the Revelation to John, Jesus says that he stands at the door and knocks.” “The idea,” he continued, “is that Jesus is knocking from outside the door.” But Cardinal Bergoglio inverted the image … and asked his fellow Cardinals and indeed the whole Church to consider “the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out.” When the Church keeps Christ to herself and does not let him out … it becomes “self-referential – and then gets sick. The Church must go out of itself to the peripheries, to minister to the needy.”

Evidently, Cardinal Bergoglio spoke the words the Church needed to hear, for he was called. We know him now as Pope Francis.

Jesus wants to lead us out into the mission field at our doorstep, as Marjorie so powerfully envisioned it 45 years ago this month. I rejoice to say that the faithful of Bering Memorial Church are still going out there, responding with love and compassion to the needs of others. The doors continue to open outward and through them all kinds of people come and go. Marjorie was one of them. There is no way to even estimate how many lives she has touched. I am grateful she touched mine and, hopefully, many others who’ve heard my stories about her.

Faithfully,

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue

September 30, 2023
The Dynamic Relationship Between Mission and Transition

Here is a question I am often asked: What has been the most valuable learning experience in your work as an interim minister and why? Here's my response.

Mission and transition are dynamically related.

When a faith community is intentional about discerning the mission entrusted to it and committed to engagement in that mission, it is also willing to be intentional about the transitions that are necessary. The dots have to be connected.

While considering leaving the parish I had served as rector for almost a decade, I was intrigued by the work being accomplished by colleagues who were intentional interim rectors. In conversations with them, I was encouraged to explore service to the wider Church through transitional ministry instead of as a settled rector in one parish. That discernment led to training in intentional interim ministry, during which I suddenly realized that all churches are in some sort of transition most of the time, although often unconscious of it. That was a big epiphany for me. I had a firm grasp of the obvious!

Transition training should be core seminary curriculum. Transitions between settled rectors provide a unique opportunity to explore transition – remembering where we’ve been, clarifying where we are, discerning where God is calling us, making changes that are needed, connecting with the wider church, and embracing a new era of mission with a new spiritual leader. But that is not the end of transition!

During this epiphany, I recalled some words of Titus Presler: “Mission is not fundamentally something we do as Christians but a quality of God’s own being. It is not a program of ours but the path of God’s action in the world. The mission of the Church, therefore, derives from the mission of God, and it has meaning only in relation to what God is up to in the universe. Already engaged in mission, God simply invites us to participate in what God is doing.”

The Church doesn’t have a mission. The mission has a Church. Everything we do as followers of Christ in community is related to and in the service of that mission. And God’s mission is constantly in transition. It became clear to me that when a church continues to function as if nothing has changed, the mission suffers. It also became clear to me that the mission suffers when changes are needed but are avoided or resisted.

So, intentional transition work in the Church, whether between rectors or at any time, must involve discernment about mission, participation in what God is doing for the sake of the world at our doorstep. Transition work matters only in relation to mission.

This insight guides my leadership so that after our interim time together, consciousness of the dynamic relationship between ongoing mission and ongoing transition will continue. Churches that are engaged in mission are healthier, happier, and more attractive to those who are seeking what Christ offers through them. In such places, transition evokes transformation.

In my service to the wider Church, I would like to leave a legacy of healthy, mission-focused, transformative congregations.

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(The Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Proper 10)

Blessings,

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

July 8, 2021
Six Better Questions

We are beginning to see light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. Our Regathering Team, Vestry, Staff, and other groups are having intentional conversations about how we will be ready to regather in person when it is safe. There will be many logistical details and procedures that are quite different from what was “normal” before this started.

I recently came across an interesting article by small church pastor Karl Vaters, in which he addresses a question many are asking: “When the pandemic is over, will the congregation come back?” In his response, he suggests that there are several better questions we should be asking ourselves. You can read the article HERE, but this is my summary of it.

Pastor Vaters offers the following six questions we should be thinking about as we anticipate the time when we can regathers in person for worship, study, service, and fellowship.

“Have we represented Jesus well during the lockdown?”

“Are we representing Jesus well as we come out of the lockdown?”

“What have we learned – and what are we still learning?”

“How can we better serve the people at home?”

“How well are we serving our online church members and visitors?”

“How are people hurting, and what can we do to help them?”

He notes that there will be other issues we can’t yet foresee, but “more than ever, the communities around us are going to need the help of healthy, missional, compassionate, worshiping, and loving churches.”

He concludes by saying, “Whether people come back through our church doors is not the big issue. How we honor Jesus by reaching the hurting people outside our doors is what matters. Ministry needs to happen from the church, not just in the church.”

I invite you to read the article and contemplate these questions in relation to our parish, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church. Our church leadership would be interested in hearing your thoughts. We would love to hear how you have made a contribution or been the recipient of the ministries of our parish during this time. Do these questions lead you to a sense of being called to a role in the ongoing life of the parish? How is God calling you to keep St. Martin’s growing as a healthy, missional, compassionate, worshiping, and loving church?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that I am heartened by the numerous examples that have come to mind as I pondered these questions. I have witnessed so many occasions when our people have been in ministry to one another and to others outside of our faith community, in spite of the strange and limiting circumstances of the past year.

Thank you for what you have done and are doing! Thank you for answering the call to represent Christ and his Church.

Blessings,

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

March 11, 2021
He Ascended into Heaven

Have you thought about the fact that, while the Ascension Window in the rear of the Cathedral Nave is our largest window, we hardly ever talk much about the Ascension other than when we're reciting the creeds?

Perhaps the reason the Church has neglected the Ascension in its preaching, teaching, and liturgical life is that it is so easy to let issues such as the location of heaven, behavior of clouds, and laws of gravity obscure the central theological affirmations of the event. I invite you to look beyond the literal description of the event with me and consider those affirmations.

The first affirmation is that it rings the curtain down on the earthly ministry of Jesus.

He had walked with them and talked with them about the Kingdom before and after the resurrection. He had walked the way of the cross. He had journeyed with them along the road to Emmaus and appeared to them in the breaking of the bread. He stood among them in that fear-filled room in Jerusalem and restored their courage and their faith. For forty days he had shared with them his risen presence. He had prepared them for his going away and promised them that he would send the Comforter, power from on high, and that because he was going to the Father, they would be able to do even greater works than he had done. Now it was time for the earthly part of his ministry to cease.

The Ascension was a farewell scene. They needed a transition and this was the event that made it possible. We know the need ourselves. His departure points to a new day in God's Realm, a new relationship with his followers, and a new responsibility for his work. So, the Ascension affirms that his earthly ministry has come to a close and his work in the world is now to be done by those whom he has chosen and empowered.

A second affirmation of the Ascension is a broadening understanding of the purpose and mission of the Church.

The figure in white asked them, “Why are you standing there looking up into heaven?” That may be another way of saying, “You have been told what you are supposed to do and it is NOT to stand there looking up into the sky. Jesus told you he’ll return but he didn’t give you a schedule. You have things to do. Go and do them!”

The challenge to the Church now as then is, while we expect his return at any moment, we are not to spend our waiting time looking up into the sky and meditating on the past but moving into mission in the world. Theologian Leslie Newbigin once observed, “The Church is unique in that it exists not for its own sake but for the sake of those outside it.”

We are not to become so caught up in gazing in wonder that we fail to capture the vision of the mission field at the doorsteps of our churches into which we are sent at the end of every service. We must not be so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good in advancing the reign of God in our part of the world!

The third affirmation of the Ascension is that Jesus, the suffering and crucified One, is now with the Father.

What does that mean? I am reminded of Luther’s debate with Zwingli during which Zwingli was challenging Luther’s perspective on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Zwingli declared, “He can’t be in two places at once, and the scripture says he’s at the right hand of God.” Luther responded, “The right hand of God is here, there, and everywhere.”

The right hand of God is not a geographical location you can Google, but rather the power bestowed upon the Son by the Father. He brings God’s power to us. It means that the One who has been given all power and authority has been touched with the feeling of weakness, knows our pain, has wrestled with temptation. His incarnation, which began with his Nativity and concluded with his Ascension, has brought something of our humanity into the very life of God.

It means that he is Sovereign of the Universe. All that is left is for the universe to acknowledge that truth.

And, it means that the ultimate outcome of history is no longer in question. The Kingdom, the power, and the glory are his now and forever. He has triumphed and, we who are his sisters and brothers through Baptism are heirs of all that he has won. His victory is our victory. You might say that his victory is hidden in our history, to be perceived only through eyes of faith. What do you see when you look around? Look again!

In the Letter to the Ephesians, we are told that the world should be able to get a glimpse of God's Reign when it looks at the Church, his Body. We have to confess that is not always what the world sees. It’s not always what we see either. But he’s probably doing more with us than he’s getting done with any other group on this planet. The Church is still alive and at work in human lives, bringing compassion, healing, purpose, and victory to people of all types in all places.

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (BCP)

I'll see you in Church!

The Very Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
Interim Dean
St. Andrew’s Cathedral
Jackson, Mississippi

P.S. This Charles Wesley hymn about the Ascension is a favorite of mine.

May 30, 2019
Every Member is a Minister

One of the most important tasks we’ve undertaken during this time of transition is to foster the engagement of the members of the Cathedral community in one or more ministries. Why is this important?

• “Every Member is a Minister” is the teaching of The Episcopal Church.

The Catechism of The Episcopal Church can be found on pages 844-862 in The Book of Common Prayer. This brief summary of the Church’s teaching, grounded in Scripture, is also known as “An Outline of the Faith.” Among the teachings we find in the Catechism is a description of how the mission of the Church is carried out and by whom:

Q. Through whom does the Church carry out its mission?
A. The Church carries out its mission through the ministry of all its members.

• “Every Member is a Minister” is a characteristic of fruitful congregations.

Fruitful congregations understand that every member is a minister, called by and connected to Jesus Christ and engaged in one or more ministries. At St. Andrew’s, these ministries are carried out with assistance of the clergy and staff under the leadership and engagement of our commissions, committees, guilds, and various ministry groups. Some of our ministries that had become dormant have been revitalized. Others have been strengthened. Still others are new initiatives.

• “Every Member is a Minister” describes a church that is ready to enter the next era of mission.

Soon, a new Dean will arrive, ready to lead you into a future where God is calling you. He or she will expect to have a well organized, active, involved laity with whom to work because that’s how the profile you helped develop describes St. Andrew's. To have all the ministries populated with people, sleeves rolled up, called, equipped, and empowered will make a big difference.

• We’ve come a long way but there is room for more.

Several weeks ago, we sent out an invitation to participate in a time and talent survey called “I Will, With God’s Help.” The intent of that survey is to determine three things:

• Places of ministry members feel called to explore or begin,
• Places of ministry members wish to continue in the coming year,
• Places of ministry where members are serving beyond the parish.

We've developed a document describing the ministries of the parish. It is entitled “Charters for Mission and Governance” and you may see it HERE. This document was prepared in collaboration with commissions and committees and finally approved by the Vestry in February of this year. Along with those descriptions, there are brief descriptions of just about every one of our ongoing ministries in the survey itself.

If you have already participated in the survey, thank you very much! If you have not, there is still time. Click HERE to participate.

As you consider this invitation, I encourage you to read again the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians. Read them as if they were written for this community of Christ's followers in this time and place.

But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. – Ephesians 4:15-16

I’ll see you in Church!

The Very Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
Interim Dean
St. Andrew’s Cathedral
Jackson, Mississippi

http://standrews.ms/iwill/

http://standrews.ms/charters-and-governance/

March 7, 2019
The Basis for Christian Mission

From time to time I remind myself and those given into my care that the Church doesn't have a mission. Rather, the mission has a Church! Christian communities are the delivery system for the mission of Christ.

The other name for The Episcopal Church is "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society." We're taught that each member of this Church is a missionary. What is the basis for our work as missionaries? I don’t mean to be overly simplistic, but I believe the Christian mission has its basis in the Great Gift, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission:

• The Great Gift (John 3:16-17) ~ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God’s greatest gift of Love surpasses all I possess, given not for condemnation but for redemption. The Gift of the Son of God to reconcile us to God inspires, empowers, and motivates us in the work of reconciliation he has entrusted to us.

• The Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) ~ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Jesus' summary of the law is the guide for our words and actions. Everything else depends on these two commandments, like a door depends on its hinges. Demonstration of love for God and love for our neighbors are the highest values of the Christian’s life.

• The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) ~ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Jesus gave this commission to the Church. It is his intention for us to be united in his mission to be and to make disciples for the sake of the world.

How are we doing, Jesus?

I'll see you in Church!

The Very Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
Interim Dean
St. Andrew’s Cathedral
Jackson, Mississippi

August 16, 2018
The Dynamic Relationship Between Mission and Transition

Here is a question I am often asked: What has been the most valuable learning experience in your work as an interim minister and why? Here's my response.

Mission and transition are dynamically related.

When a faith community is intentional about discerning the mission entrusted to it and committed to engagement in that mission, it is also willing to be intentional about the transitions that are necessary. The dots have to be connected.

While considering leaving the parish I had served as rector for almost a decade, I was intrigued by the work being accomplished by colleagues who were intentional interim rectors. In conversations with them, I was encouraged to explore service to the wider Church through transitional ministry instead of as a settled rector in one parish. That discernment led to training in intentional interim ministry, during which I suddenly realized that all churches are in some sort of transition most of the time, although often unconscious of it.

Transition training should be core seminary curriculum. Transitions between settled rectors provide a unique opportunity to explore transition – remembering where we’ve been, clarifying where we are, discerning where God is calling us, making changes that are needed, connecting with the wider church, and embracing a new era of mission with a new spiritual leader. But that is not the end of transition!

During this epiphany, I recalled some words of Titus Presler: “Mission is not fundamentally something we do as Christians but a quality of God’s own being. It is not a program of ours but the path of God’s action in the world. The mission of the Church, therefore, derives from the mission of God, and it has meaning only in relation to what God is up to in the universe. Already engaged in mission, God simply invites us to participate in what God is doing.”

The Church doesn’t have a mission. The mission has a Church. Everything we do as followers of Christ in community is related to and in the service of that mission. And God’s mission is constantly in transition. It became clear to me that when a church continues to function as if nothing has changed, the mission suffers. It also became clear to me that the mission suffers when changes are needed but are avoided or resisted.

So, intentional transition work in the Church, whether between rectors or at any time, must involve discernment about mission, participation in what God is doing for the sake of the world at our doorstep. Transition work matters only in relation to mission.

This insight guides my leadership so that after our interim time together, consciousness of the dynamic relationship between ongoing mission and ongoing transition will continue. Churches that are engaged in mission are healthier, happier, and more attractive to those who are seeking what Christ offers through them. In such places, transition evokes transformation.

I would like to leave a legacy of healthy, mission-focused, transformative congregations in my service to the wider Church.

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(The Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Proper 10)

I'll see you in Church!

The Very Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
Interim Dean
St. Andrew’s Cathedral
Jackson, Mississippi

July 20, 2018
The Foundation for Christian Mission

The other name for the Episcopal Church is “The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.” As members of this Church, we're taught that each of us is a missionary. What is the foundation, the basis for our work as missionaries? I don’t mean to be overly simplistic, but I believe the Christian mission has its basis in the Great Gift, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission:

• The Great Gift (John 3:16-17) ~ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God’s greatest gift of Love surpasses all I possess, given not for condemnation but for redemption. The Gift of the Son of God to reconcile us to God and to others inspires, empowers, and motivates us in the work of reconciliation God has entrusted to us.

• The Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) ~ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Jesus' summary of the law is the guide for our words and actions. Everything else depends on these two commandments, like a door depends on its hinges. Demonstration of love for God and love for our neighbors are the highest values of the Christian’s life.

• The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) ~ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Jesus gave this commission to the Church. He intends for us to be united in God's mission. What happens when we gather for worship, study, and fellowship is to prepare us to GO back into the world to be and to make disciples for the sake of the world. We are blessed not just to feel good about ourselves, but so that we may be a blessing to others.

How are we doing, Jesus?

I'll see you in Church!

The Very Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
Interim Dean
Saint John’s Cathedral
Denver, Colorado

August 30, 2016
Sermon at St. John’s Episcopal Church ! June 19, 2015

The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

Listen to the Sermon for June 19, 2016

Read the Sermon for June 19, 2016

June 19, 2016
Every member has a ministry!

The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Jesus as the Messiah to the gentile world. In the season following the feast, we are reminded of various ways he manifested his messianic role – miracles, healing, preaching, teaching, and calling people to follow him.

He spent time with those who responded to his call, forming them into a community and equipping them to continue his messianic work in the world. Each follower of Jesus was given gifts for this work. Some were placed in positions of leadership to provide the formative experiences for others in the generations that followed. In this way, the community of followers of Jesus, the Church, was strategically ordered to advance his mission from generation to generation.

Writing to the followers of Jesus in the city of Ephesus in the first few years after Jesus ascended into heaven, St. Paul wrote of this way of ensuring the future of Christian mission:

But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4:7, 11-13).

Notice that the “work of ministry” is entrusted to “the saints.” Who are the saints? The saints are the members of Christ’s Church, the followers of Jesus. Our Episcopal catechism expresses it this way, “The Church carries out its mission through the ministry of all its members” (BCP, p. 855).

Larger congregations, like ours, have several members of the clergy and a number of staff members. It is easy to see the clergy and staff as the ones who carry out the Church’s mission. Sometimes even the clergy and staff begin to see it that way. However, when that happens, the saints are deprived of their missional opportunities. It is not the job of the clergy and staff to do the work of ministry for the saints. Our vocation and our ministry is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” Under the leadership of our Bishop, clergy and staff strategically order the life of the community of faith, recruit, teach, train, equip, empower, and nurture the members in their ministries. It is our responsibility to help each member discover his or her gifts and discern ways in which Christ wants those gifts to be used his ongoing mission.

Some of the members are called to serve primarily within the life of the Church. Others are called to ministries out in the world at our doorstep. Many are called to do both! Christ calls each of us to be engaged in his mission. Every member has a ministry! Vibrant, fruitful churches are filled with people who believe that and exercise their ministries to the glory of God, thereby building up the Church in pursuit of Christ’s mission.

So, during this season when we recall those whom Christ called to follow him during his earthly ministry, we reclaim and reaffirm our own vocations. Where are you called to serve Christ in his Church? If you know, your clergy and staff are here to assist you and support you. And, if you are not sure, we are here to help you find a ministry that is right for you.

There is a long list of possibilities in a brochure we have placed in various locations around the campus. It is also HERE on our website. I invite you, in the name of Jesus Christ, to take some time to review the opportunities and respond to the call to serve in one or more ways. There are places of service every week and places of service that may last for months. Some service requires little preparation and some requires more. A number of roles are for leading others and many are for following. All are important to our life together and to Christ’s mission in the world.

By responding to your vocation, you give us the privilege of fulfilling ours! Please let us hear from you.

I’ll see you in Church!

January 13, 2016